


don't dally with the devil

by Kells



Series: The Varied Adventures of the Captain and Mrs. Cap [7]
Category: Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, Winter Soldier (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Dreams and Nightmares, F/M, Female Steve Rogers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-11-10
Updated: 2017-02-05
Packaged: 2018-04-30 23:42:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 12
Words: 21,375
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5184164
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kells/pseuds/Kells
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Just to recap,” Sam muttered, barely audible. “We were enjoying a quiet night in, but then someone stole our Mrs. Captain right out of her bed, and then a magician showed up and said it was some other version of him from a different universe, and then Loki dropped in from god-knows-where but that’s okay because he’s our friend now, except Stephanie’s still going to shoot him if he tries anything, and everyone’s just fine with all this?”</p><p>“Yep,” Clint nodded after a moment. “That’s pretty much it, Wilson, thanks.”</p><p>2016: in which Steph's dreams turn out to be neither PTSD nor the serum failing but, quite possibly, the multiverse encroaching. Antics ensue.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Steph opens her eyes in a medical facility unlike any she’s ever seen on either side of the ice. She’s already on her feet, but has no idea either of how she’d got there or why a man in STRIKE gear is pointing a gun at the bedraggled figure hunched over in front of them. He looks much more like a prisoner than any kind of operative, but some guy in an expensive suit stands over him, demanding a “mission report” in an increasingly aggressive tone.

“Stand down,” Steph snaps at the STRIKE agent, vaguely aware that she doesn’t really have any context in regard to the present situation but also quite willing to bet against Brock Rumlow and his trigger-happy team. “He’s just-“

The man in the suit strikes his prisoner hard enough to leave Steph’s jaw aching in sympathy. Whoever _that_ joker is, she decides right away, he’s not one of the good guys.

“Hey,” she tries again, more loudly. “Is anyone gonna tell me what the hell is going on here?”

They give no sign at all that they can hear her.

“Mission report,” the leader barks again. “Now.”

“That man on the bridge,” his captive mumbles, and Steph finds herself shaking her head in urgent denial as his voice registers. “Who was he?”

Bucky sounds more like a lost child than a hardened soldier. Steph’s lips form her husband’s name, but she can’t seem to make a sound. She must be mistaken, she thinks desperately- but when she staggers closer she discovers that he has her husband’s eyes as well as his voice. Those, too, are hurt and scared, devoid of all other feeling in a way Steph has never seen before and hopes never to see again. He’s exhausted, bruised and bloodied like he’s just been in a fight, and so deathly pale that his poor cracked lips show up over-red and swollen-looking in a way that has nothing to do with being shackled for life to a dame who will insist on kissing him with all her make-up still on. The creep in the suit is still talking, but any hope Steph ever had of paying attention is gone forever the second she realises that Bucky’s left arm isn’t in some kind of awful brace but _gone completely_.

“Christ,” she rasps, halfway between a prayer for deliverance and a plea for immediate and bloody vengeance. She wonders for a second if the serum might have failed somehow, leaving them to replace the arm that wouldn’t work.

“If you don’t do your part,” the guy says in an awful, cajoling voice thick with false kindness. “I can’t do mine, and HYDRA can’t give the world the freedom it deserves.”

Steph gives an honest-to-goodness shriek of horror, then claps a hand over her mouth before the STRIKE guy can think to shoot her husband in retalliation. The others keep acting like they have no idea she’s there, though, and the Bucky who isn’t her Bucky, except he is, just completely out of it and _in HYDRA captivity_ , shakes his head. He frowns like he used to when they were kids and he couldn’t get his sums right no matter how many times he went over the arithmetic. 

“But I knew him.”

The HYDRA boss sighs, scowling like it can possibly be some poor broken boy’s fault that he isn’t keen on killing a guy they won’t even tell him about properly. He gets up, nodding decisively at the team of nervous-looking scientific types.

“Prep him.”

That can’t be good. Steph rushes forward, determined to get between her boy and the others, but neither her protests nor her urgent efforts to stop them by force have any impact- she can’t do anything at all but watch them manhandle him into place.

“Bucky,” she mutters desperately, at a loss because he isn’t even trying to resist. On a good day he could probably take all five of them and still disarm the STRIKE guy before he lined up his shot, but today Bucky just lets them drag him back, raising his empty, empty eyes to the ceiling as they force him into their machine. “A Shéamais, please-“

By that point there’s not much anyone could do against their restraints even if they showed more signs than Bucky has of knowing how. His chest is heaving already, a practised response- he knows to prepare for what’s coming, Steph recognises with nauseous certainty, because they’ve done it to him before.

“James, god-“

He screams, and doesn’t stop screaming. Steph has no idea she’s screaming with him until her husband’s desperate voice breaks in over the sound of his own agonized cries.

“Steph! Stephanie, please, a chroí-“

She woke up as if someone had flipped a switch- one second all she could see was that awful HYDRA lab; the very next, her own James was leaning over her in the semi-darkness of their bedroom in Brooklyn Heights.

“There you are,” he cried as Steph opened her eyes- apparently he’d been trying to rouse her for a while. “Poor sweet girl- that was worse than usual, huh.”

Instead of answering, Steph threw her arms around him in clumsy, overwhelmed relief. She planted a row of fervent, grateful kisses from his shoulder to his collarbone, then dragged him closer so she could run one frantic hand down the blessedly smooth expanse of his back while the other tangled in his short, sleep-mussed hair.  

“Bucky, thank God. Thank  _God,_ a Shéamais.”

“I’m okay,” he promised, brushing his lips against her temple in that old familiar way. “We’re just fine, Steph.”

She moved both hands to his shoulders; he watched her curiously as his own found her waist.

“I love you, okay? Always and forever, and maybe after that. You’re not allowed to forget.”

Bucky cocked an eyebrow, affectionate and challenging.

“How could anyone forget a thing like that?”

He didn’t know, though- _he_ hadn’t seen with his own eyes what it looked like when he’d forgotten how to hope.

“I won’t let them do it,” Steph promised, resting her head against his shoulder as her hand found its way back into his hair. “I’ll tell Tony, okay, and Clint and Tasha- even if the serum fails you’re not _ever_ gonna-”

“Steph,” Bucky interrupted, and it was the edge of real anxiety in his voice that made her cut herself off and glance up sharply.

“What is it? Bucky, what’s wrong?”

He smiled, warm but wry.

“I was kinda hoping you’d tell me.”

He wasn’t asking, though- that wasn’t Bucky’s way. If Steph was ready to tell him he’d listen and gladly, but he’d never press her for details he didn’t think she wanted to give. He was so tired, poor thing, already blinking heavily but perfectly willing to stay up all night if she said that was what she needed. God alone knew what time it was. Steph tugged gently on his hair, more like a suggestion than a demand, and smiled when he understood that she’d meant for him to lie back against their pillows and draw her close, just so.

“They were HYDRA,” she confessed when they were settled. Bucky didn’t make a sound, but his hands clenched protectively where they rested. Steph kissed his precious flesh-and-bone shoulder, trying not to fixate on the nightmarish alternative.

“They wanted you to kill someone, but you didn’t wanna do it, and they-”

She didn’t know what to call it- or what it had been for, even. “You were screaming. Bucky, it was- and you were-”

It wasn’t like him to interrupt, but Bucky cut Steph off by pressing his lips to hers.

“It wasn’t real, okay? I’m right here, with you, and HYDRA’s long since done.”

“Thank God,” Steph muttered again; this time, Bucky grinned.

“Amen, again I say Amen.”

Usually Steph hated it when people (meaning first Gary Richards then Tony Stark) joked around while she was in earnest, but Bucky had always known how to lighten things while still taking her perfectly seriously. Steph tucked herself more snugly into her husband’s arms.

“I’m sorry I woke you.”

Bucky rolled his eyes, not even bothering to tell her again that he’d always want to be there if she needed him.

“You gonna be able to go back to sleep, you think?”

 It took a while, sometimes. Steph nodded anyway.

“I’ll be fine long’s you don’t let go.”

In response, Bucky laced his fingers together at her waist before letting his eyes fall shut at last.

“Wake me if y’want me. Or if anyone HYDRA comes knocking. Or if-”

“Hush,” Steph murmured. “We’re okay, Bucky.”

“I know,” he objected, opening his eyes so he could look at her accusingly. “I’ve been saying that this whole time.”

His wife touched her lips to his.

“We'll get you a medal in the morning if you want one. Go to sleep, soldier.”

“Mm,” he agreed vaguely, most of the way there already. “Love you, lovely girl.”

It was enough, Steph decided, because what else was there to ask for? She shut her eyes, determined not to disturb him, and ended up falling asleep with her fingers still curled possessively around Bucky's arm.

* * *

 

In another reality entirely, the elderly Mr. Stark leaned forward eagerly in his wheelchair.

“Well?”

“We’re very close,” Reed Richards assured his long-time benefactor. “It’s just a matter of stabilizing the transfer field enough to bring her through without hurting her.”

 Both men looked towards the last member of their trio for confirmation. Stephen Strange nodded gravely.

“Certainly we brought her consciousness into contact with another world without displacing that of their Steven Rogers. If Dr. Richards can ‘stabilise the field,’ as he says, the rest should follow.”

Stark smiled quite widely.

“Good work, gentlemen. Let’s get back to it, shall we?”


	2. Chapter 2

Steph turned in her chair, smiling at the two-rap knock with which Bucky always identified himself. It had long since stopped being necessary, not least because the combination of her serum-refined hearing and the hardwood floors of the Stark mansion meant that Steph had recognised her husband’s tread before he ever reached the door, but it was one of those Bucky things- he liked to know that Steph knew that she had a choice about it all, or something.

“Hey,” she grinned, tilting her head to invite his kiss hello. “Ant’ny finally get done explaining the cyber-whatsit?”  

Bucky chuckled almost against Steph’s cheek.

“More like the rest of us started fallin’ asleep on him so he kicked us out. Like father, like son, I guess.”

Resting a hand on her shoulder, he leaned in close to see what Steph had been working on.

“I can’t get the shading right,” she grumbled, gesturing to indicate the tree which wouldn’t seem to cooperate. Bucky touched his cheek to her forehead in a small, sideways shrug.

“Looks good to me, kid.”

That was a Bucky thing too- he always came back talking a bit more like Cap from the war when he’d been on his own with Tony, and therefore thinking about Howard. Strangely, suddenly, overcome, Steph turned and threw her arms around her husband’s waist as he straightened.

“A Shéamais,” she murmured, closing her eyes with her cheek against his chest. She’d be all right, she was almost sure, as long as he stayed with her. Bucky paused, surprised, then tugged her braid with teasing affection.

“That’s me, all right. C’mon, sweet girl, let’s get you to bed before you hurt your neck twisting into unnatural shapes.”

“You don’t mind when Natasha does that,” Steph muttered playfully, thinking of the scissor kick Bucky so admired.

“That one’s got a spine made of steel,” her husband shrugged nonchalantly. “And she’s not my own Steph, is she, so if _she_ wants to throw all her joints out I guess that’s none of my business.”

That was fair, Steph decided, so she kissed him quickly by way of conceding and let him shepherd her over to the massive hotel-style bed JARVIS insisted wasn’t meant for five or six people. Bucky raised an eyebrow, amused, when Steph perched on the edge to watch him get changed.

“You know I won’t be jealous if you get in first, right?”

Steph smiled, but it was a little shaky because that bed, without him in it, brought up just the kind of memory she preferred to pretend she had never had. She shrugged, deciding Bucky would sleep better if they didn’t talk about that. Which was also why she hadn’t said anything about the nightmares that were quickly becoming a regular thing, obviously. She shrugged, reaching for an easy way to distract him.

“Ant’ny says people our age are supposed to be up til four every night.”

Bucky scowled on cue.

“To you he says that. To me he says kids our age are supposed to have dentures and hair implants. What the hell does anyone need _hair_ implants for, I really wanna-“

Stephanie stood up, closed the distance between them, and grabbed her husband by the shoulders so she could drag him into a kiss. His arms around her were sure and safe, and neither of them was even a little bit made of steel and suffering.

“I love you,” Steph told him as if Bucky might not have noticed yet. “So much, and all the time, and more than that.”

He smiled uncertainly, transparently wondering what had prompted such a slew of declarations.

“I know, a ghrá.”

Steph kissed him again, a clearer call to action, and smiled against his mouth as Bucky’s hands slid up her back.

“Come to bed, soldier.”

He always looked so _surprised_ when she flirted openly, but it never so much as slowed his stride. Bucky snapped to attention as if he might salute.

“Ma’am,” he said instead, absolutely formal, then flashed a hunter’s grin and lifted Steph clean off her feet. “Let’s get to it, Agent Steph.”

Later, though, he touched careful, concerned fingertips to the dark shadows under her eyes which Steph should have known he’d noticed days ago.

“Sleep, okay? I’ll be right here, I promise.”

That was, if possible, the buckiest Bucky thing of all- he never asked, or even needed to ask- he just knew what she needed, often before Steph herself had the first idea.

“I love you,” she said again; he smiled, then kissed her cheek, and combed those careful, ever-ready fingers through her hair until she was quite deeply asleep.   

When she opens her eyes again, the boy who can’t be her husband, except that he can’t be anyone else either, is on his knees and handcuffed to an overhanging pipe. Brock Rumlow drags his head back by yanking viciously on his hair.

“Say it,” the STRIKE operative snarls; Bucky shakes his head like a child.

“I don’t want to.”

Steph steps between them, because there’s only one way this can go, but of course there’s nothing she can do, at all, to stop Rumlow from backhanding her husband with cruel clarity of purpose.

“I don’t give a damn what you want. You’ll do what I tell you to or I won’t be responsible for what happens next.”

The next blow is to his chest.

“Say it,” Rumlow growls. “ _Hail Hydra_ , you cybernetic freak.”

Bucky watches the government agent with the little-boy-lost eyes Steph hopes she’ll never get used to.

“I don’t know what that means.”

Steph’s hands clench with her husband's as Rumlow kicks him hard. Anyone else would be doubled over or screaming, probably, but the Bucky Steph dreams about has obviously learnt that either course would be a worse mistake than his steely, blank-eyed silence.

_“Say it.”_

He shakes his head, just slightly.

“Why?”  

Sometimes, Steph wonders whether she can just close her eyes and wait for the dream to end- but that’s not who she is, not really. Even in the confines of her own apparently messed-up head, she’s never going to leave her boy alone if she can help it.

“Stop,” she growls, making a grab for the truncheon Rumlow seems to have settled on. “I won’t let you-“

The door shuts with a clang- Rumlow turns with Steph to find the man she now knows as Mr. Pierce watching them with cold, cold, eyes.

“I hope you have a damn good explanation for this.”

Rumlow looks rebellious.

“I’m training your animal,” he mutters, not quite brave enough to meet the other man’s eyes. “Except that he’s-“

“The most valuable asset this organisation has on hand,” Pierce interrupts, his voice cool and cultured and far too American to be HYDRA, except that’s exactly what he is. “And worth more than your life by no small margin.”

Both men turn to look at their asset, trembling and sick on the ground ahead of them. They can’t see Steph crouched with him, trying in vain to be of any use at all.

“He’s pathetic,” Rumlow spits. One of Pierce’s shoulders lifts in the most uncaring half-shrug Steph has ever seen.

“He’s the key to this victory. If you get in his way when I need him on form I won’t stop him from defending himself.”

They stare each other down in the tense silence of military men who can’t afford to show how much they disdain each other. The stalemate ends the only way it can: Rumlow drops his eyes without relaxing his fighting stance.  

“You’re the boss.”

Pierce smiles, and it’s almost enough to make Steph miss Loki.

“Don’t forget it.”

Bucky never says a word.

The next thing Steph knew, Bruce was taking her pulse while Bucky carded her hair with trembling fingers. He was shaking, Steph realised as her vision cleared, heaving like he’d been running. She tried to say his name and choked instead- both men reached to help her sit before she started coughing violently.

“You’re okay,” Bucky promised, steadying her like he always would. “Just give it a second, a chroí.”  

He was rubbing her back already, consciously or unconsciously returning to the routine of their pre-serum lives. “You’re gonna be all right, Steph.”

She touched her husband’s wrist, not sure how to ask what the hell she’d done to scare him so badly.

“You tellin’ me or you?”

Instead of answering, Bucky kissed her forehead, then pressed his cheek against her hair in pure, wordless tenderness. Steph rested her hand on his neck, quietly soothing, and looked to Bruce for help.

“You were unresponsive,” the doctor told her; his voice was just clinical enough for Steph to know at once that she had scared him, too. “Cap had to keep you going until we could stabilise you.”

Steph raised her eyes, alarmed: she wasn’t sure she’d ever seen Bucky as shaken as the first time he’d had to give her CPR. Her husband shrugged, aiming for casual.

“Least I don’t have to worry about breakin’ any ribs these days.”

“’m sorry,” Steph muttered; Bucky pressed her closer without even bothering to scold her for it. Steph shut her eyes, just for a second, then opened them so she could ask the question that had been playing on her mind for weeks.

“Is it the serum?”

Both Bucky and the doctor looked completely blank. Steph tangled her fingers together with Bucky’s to try and protect him from the realisation she’d already had.

“Whatever’s going on with me, I mean. Is it because the serum’s breaking down?”


	3. Chapter 3

“Richards. A word.”

The physicist twisted his neck to regard his associate without compromising the fine adjustments he had just made to his microscope.

“Does anyone say no to you?”

From someone else it might have been impertinence; from Richards even Doctor Strange knew it was only scientific curiosity.

“Rarely,” he offered, thinking fleetingly of Clea. “It won’t take long, Doctor.”

Unusually, Richards heard the implied reproach and reacted to it, setting his instruments aside with only a suppressed sigh which may have been of disappointment.

“Is something the matter with our subject?”

The sorcerer grimaced.

“You could at least call her by her name.”

Richards blinked slowly, apparently trying to understand what difference it could possibly make. 

“Is something the matter with the Stephanie Rogers of Earth 200006?”

Strange fought the urge to sigh.

“The girl is well enough herself,” he allowed. “It’s the adjacent worlds that worry me. 199999 is dangerously close to full revolt.”

Richards nodded, unsurprised. Of course he would have noticed the same thing in his own data-gathering.

“It’s to be expected,” he said, quite calmly. “Unless I’ve missed the mark entirely Stark even hopes it will convince her that he’s right in the long run.”

Strange crossed his arms as his brows came together.

“I’m not convinced that she'll see things his way.”

The physicist gave an exaggerated shrug- Richards had never been one to speculate too early.

“I suppose we’ll find out fairly soon, won’t we?”

* * *

"How's she doing, though? Really, I mean."

Bucky had known the question was coming since Clint's expression had started turning sympathetic in that very particular way- the one he would much preferred to have put behind him along with migraines, asthma, and god-damned influenza. To avoid taking his frustration out on his poor well-meaning friend and teammate, he closed his eyes and concentrated on his wife’s breathing. It was barely audible two doors down from the study where Clint had found him, but if he really paid attention Bucky could make out each steady, sleep-weighted breath. He smiled a little.

“She's all right. Getting better, even- lately it’s just been the nightmares.”

Even just that was pretty wretched, terrorizing Steph more nights than not with alarmingly specific visions of a future that made very little sense as far as Bucky could see, but it had been a good while since he’d had to perform CPR just to keep his girl in the fight long enough for Banner to clatter in with all his gear. Clint frowned, but didn’t say out loud that that sounded like a low bar even for people who had grown up during an era when lead paint and radium face creams had been considered perfectly normal.

“Are you guys still thinking about getting in touch with McCoy?”

Bucky nodded.

“Tony says he’s ahead of the pack in-”

He cut himself off at the sound of a shallow gasp Clint wouldn’t have been able to make out.

“Steph,” he called before she had time to worry. “We’re in the study, a chroí.”

His wife murmured his name, reassured; Bucky let himself relax as her breathing slowed and deepened.

“She’s okay,” he said again, much more firmly. “We’re gonna figure this out.”

“Yeah we are,” Clint grinned, draining his mug as the bedroom door opened. “We need more coffee. Back in a minute.”

He disappeared with the discretion of a man who had spent the better part of a decade most of the way to genuinely in love with Natalia Romanova. Bucky didn’t know how long it had taken Clint to acknowledge that, let alone get Tasha to acknowledge any kind of reciprocity, but it was high on his list of questions he wished Jack Miller was still around to ask before he had to.

“Hey, my J.”

Steph came in, still a little bleary-eyed but smiling and at ease. Instead of taking the chair Clint had vacated for her, she slid comfortably into Bucky’s so she could snuggle into him like they were huddling for warmth in the dead of winter. Bucky opened his mouth to say he’d go get her a robe, considered the damage that could do now Steph was on high alert about the serum giving up on them, and settled for pressing her closer so he could keep her warm himself. He claimed a kiss to stop himself from asking what she needed or whether she was sure she’d slept okay. His wife’s right hand had already found his left, which was almost a routine by now- Steph hadn’t managed to explain without dissolving into helpless tears yet, but Bucky gathered that one of the recurring features in his wife’s nightmares was the loss and brutal replacement of his serum-repaired arm. He’d seen Tony’s eyes light up at the technology involved, but Tasha had cuffed him violently round the head before Stark could start sketching a prototype, just in case. His wife touched her lips to his shoulder, then settled more comfortably against him and shut her eyes with a quiet sigh.

“That’s better,” she murmured. Bucky fought down a troubled sigh of his own.

“Listen, Steph-”

They both looked up as JARVIS first sounded then immediately cut off the alarm that usually meant Tony wanted the Avengers to collect wherever he happened to be. Usually the klaxon was followed by some kind of update on where that was, but that day Tony’s voice was muffled and echoing in the way that meant he was addressing them from inside his suit.

“Sorry, false alarm. Everything’s fine, go back to whatever you were doing. Except you, Widow- you stop that right now, whatever it is.”

Steph frowned, capturing the phone Bucky had abandoned on the table in front of them so she could tap into their comm-line.

“What’s going on?”

Bucky could imagine Tony’s metal-clad shoulders lifting in a casual mid-air shrug.

“Johnny Storm’s calling in some aerial back-up; Richards asked us to keep and eye on him until he and Sue catch up.”

That sounded reasonable, Bucky decided, but Steph still looked concerned.

“You wanna take Wilson in case you guys need back-up too?”

Sam snorted, unimpressed.

“Thanks, Steph. What am I, the C-team?”

“We’re fine,” Tony promised; when JARVIS offered no contradiction, even Steph had to accept that they must, actually, be fine.

“Be careful,” Bucky said anyway, because the sentiment was written all over his wife’s face but she didn’t like to nag. “Let us know if you need ground support.”

Steph turned to kiss his cheek in thanks.

“Roger that,” War Machine acknowledged formally. “Thanks, Cap; Agent Barnes.”

“Colonel,” Steph murmured, just as correct. Bucky squeezed her hand. By the time she’d signed off and set his phone back down, JARVIS had pulled up the emerging media coverage so they could follow the fight from the study.

“Ew,” Clint grimaced from the doorway. Somehow, he managed to get all three mugs to their correct spots without spilling a drop of coffee or taking his eyes off the television. “I for one am very glad they don't need us on this one.”

The creature Johnny seemed to have antagonized looked to be made mostly out of some kind of mucus. Steph shuddered a little.

“I second that. Thanks, Clint.”

“Sure,” he muttered, obviously not sure he wanted his own drink anymore. Steph turned her head just as the creature engulfed Johnny in a spray of slime that extinguished all his flames and left him visibly nauseated. Caught watching his wife instead of the fight, Bucky wiggled his eyebrows, playfully daring her to call him out. The last thing he expected was for Steph’s eyes to well up.

“Bucky.”

She set her cup down so she could reach for him; of course he caught her securely around the waist.

"Right here, a ghrá."

In mere seconds she was choking on air, crying more like she was in serious pain than like something had upset her. Bucky moved to swing her carefully into his arms, half-convinced that he was going to have to make a dash for Banner’s rooms, but Steph stopped him with a hand clenching urgently at his shoulder.

“Don’t,” she whispered, pleading and commanding. “Don’t, I just- I'm fine."

Bucky gave a bark of laughter that was harsh even to his own ears; he tried to soften it with a kiss to his wife’s damp cheek. Steph took another painful breath, struggling to smile as she slid her hand up his neck to rest, protective and proprietary, at his jaw.

“I’m fine,” she said again. “I love you, okay, that’s all.”

Her eyes begged him to believe her, so Bucky pressed his wife back and kissed her with all the fervent devotion that had already stopped him from dragging her straight to Banner to demand when, exactly, loving him had become a chronic illness.

“You're okay,” he agreed, stroking her hair and smiling as widely as he could without deceiving her or himself. “Love you too, sweet Stephanie girl.”

Slime-battle forgotten, Clint watched them both with startled, deeply worried eyes.


	4. Chapter 4

“That all you got?”

Steph kicked out at Clint as viciously as she ever had; Bucky- the big hypocrite, considering he'd never ever used his full strength on anyone he actually liked- always said there wasn’t much point in sparring together if they all went about it like they'd rather be sipping tea than trading punches. “Don’t you dare go easy on me, punk.”

"You just called me 'punk,'" Clint reported with a grin; he made a grab for Steph’s ankle to force her to overbalance instead of renewing her attack. Steph threw herself into the motion so she was rolling instead of falling and shot to her feet with her shield already raised. She had every intention of letting Clint have it when she registered that Natasha Romanova and her victim were suddenly at the centre of her field of vision. The Black Widow had Captain Barnes pinned to the mats, one knee digging into his chest as she pressed her electrifiable cuff to his neck.

“Say the words, Barnes.”

Suddenly all Steph could see was Brock Rumlow with his taser truncheon thing in hand, smiling grimly as Bucky curled in on himself in dull-eyed resignation. She only realized what she’d done when Bucky’s eyes- as sharp and clear as ever- widened slightly before he grabbed Tasha’s shoulders and rolled with her so she was on her back and out of range in time for him to snatch the shield out of the air.

“Steph! What’s going on?”

It wasn’t always Rumlow on his own. Sometimes Steph dreamt about her husband struggling in the grip of five or six of those guys, or staring listlessly ahead while HYDRA flunkies taunted him in languages Steph was sure he wasn’t meant to know how to speak, or strapped into that godawful machine, or-

“Let go of him,” she growled; the gun Tasha had set aside before training was cool and heavy in her grip. “Now.”

She was dimly aware of Clint’s worried muttering behind her, but Tasha only nodded once, very calm, and stepped away from Steph’s husband in brisk, precise movements. Bucky himself stood quickly, putting himself between the two women with the shield still on his arm. His voice was gentle.

“You wanna put the gun down, Stephanie?”

She couldn’t, though, not when there were so many ways they could still hurt him.

“We gotta go,” she hissed, urgent because he was usually much more cooperative. “Bucky, c’mon, we can’t stay here.”

Her eyes were fixed on Tasha, but Steph caught the peripheral movement of Bucky straightening subtly- into the Captain Barnes posture, Steph thought just as he confirmed it by addressing her in the quiet rumble she still thought of as his Captain America voice.

“Rogers. Look at me a second, will you?”

Her eyes snapped to his automatically; more than once, their lives had depended on her ability to respond to that tone without questions or commentary.

“That’s right,” Bucky murmured. Stephanie kept the pistol trained on the Widow even as Bucky pressed the shield into Natasha’s hands.

“Cap,“ she protested uneasily, but Bucky shook his head with a small, sure smile.

“Widow’s on our side, I promise.”

He had never lied to her about something like that; if he ever started, Steph wasn’t sure she’d want to know what had been done to make him. She shivered at another unsolicited memory of Bucky being forced to his knees by leather-clad guards with cruel eyes. Bucky frowned- of course he hadn’t missed Steph’s quickly suppressed whimper. “You wanna give me that before someone loses an eye?”

Steph surrendered it as soon as he held his hand out; in a few deliberate movements Bucky had unloaded the pistol and then pressed that, too, into Natasha’s hands. Leaving the Widow armed and wary behind him, Bucky turned back to Steph. He rested a palm on each of her forearms while she looked up at him, focused only on his eyes.

“That's good. You still with me?”

She nodded numbly.

“Great. Go ahead.”

“Barnes,” Steph heard herself say as if from quite a distance. “Stephanie Maire. Special Agent, SSR. Never got an R/N- Peggy said it wasn’t that kind of unit.”

Bucky nodded gravely.

“Mission parameters?”

Steph tilted her head, feeling out the answer.

“Training.”

She took a deep, shaky breath. “Just training.”

At home, with their new team, in the private residence of their close friend and long-time host. Her eyes widened, shifting beyond Bucky’s worried gaze to take in Clint and Tasha, now standing close together across the room.

“Bucky,” Steph faltered; she was strangely aware that she was shaking. “I don’t understand, J.”

The hands still on her arms guided her closer.

“I see that,” Bucky said softly. “It’s all right now, Steph.”

It did seem to be, Steph thought, but pressed her palms to his flushed cheeks and shut her eyes against the assault of another hundred helpful visions of all the ways he could be made to suffer.

“I hate this,” Steph whispered, forcing her eyes open again so she could turn a pleading, frustrated look on her husband. “Why can’t one of these goddamn head-shrinks give me some kind of something to make it stop?”

She’d been so good so far about trying every treatment the team thought was important, but those guys always wanted to talk about the past, and the war, and the symbolic importance of Bucky’s arm, when all Steph was looking for was some kind of concrete assurance that Bucky could conceivably be okay. Her husband kissed her hair, deeply sympathetic.

“I don’t think it works like that, a chroí.”

She froze when Tasha Romanova’s fingers brushed her arm.

“You two should get some rest.”

She looked only at Steph, as if to assure her that she had no designs on Bucky. Stephanie grasped her wrist.

“Tasha. I’m sorry.”

The Black Widow’s smile was _almost_ mischievous, but ached with understanding.

“It’s hardly the first time a girl’s been tempted to pull a gun on me for looking at her husband the wrong way.”

Awkward and off-color as it was, Steph found she appreciated the effort at their usual banter. She wasn't quite up to responding.

“You know I’d never-”

The Black Widow's eyes gentled; her smile grew less forced.

“I know. Make sure this old man gets enough sleep so I can beat him properly next time, all right?”

“Steph,” Bucky growled, grasping for normalcy. “Will you tell that woman that I _know_ she knows how old we are?”

The Widow smirked at him.

“Tell it to your birth certificate, dedushka.”

Absurdly grateful to both of them for trying, Steph tried to laugh and found herself coughing instead; predictable as ever, Bucky kissed her temple before offering her an easy grin.

“Right, you: where’re we goin’?”

He really was worried, Steph realized- the question came out so Irish that even Tasha couldn’t keep the surprise off her face; Clint looked fascinated, but didn’t try to interrupt. Steph shrugged.

“Don’t care long’s you come with me.”

Bucky laughed softly.

“As opposed to what, Steph?”

She hoped he’d never have to find out. Rather than explaining, she kissed her husband’s neck, eyes shut tight so she wouldn’t have to acknowledge the silvering scar that was still there, no less terrifying for being barely visible now.

“I _won’t_ let them hurt you,” she insisted. Bucky kissed her forehead.

“I know you won’t. Say good night to these two, will you?”

She let him fuss over her on the way back to their suite, but raised an eyebrow when he asked JARVIS to run a bath instead of tugging her into the shower with him like she’d expected.

“Hush,” he grumbled, adorably defensive. “It’ll help you sleep, right, don’t they say?”

He left her to it, heading for the shower himself, but when he was done came back and perched on the edge of the tub like he was thinking about joining her.

“You’ll be cold,” Steph warned him- unlike her husband, she preferred her baths _without_ a distinct risk of being boiled alive- but Bucky shook his head with a grin.

“Just enjoying the view, pretty lady.”

He laughed when she ducked her head; Steph thought they were both surprised by how fiercely she was blushing. She felt her shoulders unclench a little as Bucky slid his hands into her wet hair. The way he did it now still seemed so new- before the ice the same scene would have played out over a basin in their bedroom, Steph too sick to move but fed up with the way her sweaty hair was clinging to her face and neck and Bucky indulging her less because he wanted to and more because there wasn't much else he could give her just then. These days he could go about it slowly and luxuriously, whispering his admiration as he massaged her scalp; back home in the 30s and 40s he'd always been somewhere between resentful and defiant, determined to get it all done as soon as humanly possible because chronic pneumonia was the only thing on God’s earth he hated more fervently than asthma and migraines combined. It had been six years and change, Steph reckoned, since that kind of thing had been normal for them; she tried not to wonder how soon it might become their life again.

“Bucky?”

His hands stilled to signal that he was listening.

“D’you think I’m going crazy?”

In some ways it seemed like the simplest solution. If it wasn’t the serum, like Banner and his colleagues seemed increasingly sure, and it wasn’t PTSD- she’d seen three different head-shrinks and some medically-qualified psychic of a type she hadn’t wanted to think too hard about before Bucky and Tony had let that one drop- then it could just be her mind, maybe, that hadn’t thawed out exactly right.

“‘Course not.”

It wasn’t an automatic denial, either- he’d stopped and thought about it, probably following Steph’s own thought process point for point, but his knowing eyes were absolutely confident. “She spooked you, Steph, that’s all.”

He was all clean, warm and dry in the old-fashioned pajamas Tony laughed at openly even as he went about locating every boutique in New York that sold anything like them, but didn't complain when Steph turned to put her head down, resting her wet cheek against his thigh. Bucky got scared too, though- it had taken Steph most of 1943 to get used to the change in her husband’s eyes that had come from being able to let his guard down for three full seconds at a time without wondering whether it would be asthma or the ‘flu that got her first.   

“ _You’ve_ never tried to shoot Tasha,” she pointed out, a little petulant; Bucky laughed at her tone as he bent to kiss her ear.

“Sorry, Stephanín. I’ll get on that as soon as I can, okay?”

She glared on principle, pulling away to duck under the water and rinse out her hair. Bucky turned to get her a towel, but instead of handing it over he shook it out and stood in front of her expectantly. Stephanie cocked her head, gently mocking.

“I'm not a five-year-old.”

He caught her in a firm terrycloth embrace.

“You gonna make a point or what?”

She kissed the corner of his mouth, just where that almost-dimple was about to form, and let him carry her off like some kind of prize. Bucky laid her gently on her side of the bed, tossing her a night-dress as he went in search of dry clothes for himself; they fell into bed in a tangle of limbs. Normal people didn’t ever sleep like that, they had been firmly informed when Gary or Hannah or someone had found them like that once, but then normal people tended not to care quite as much whether they could _feel_ the other one still breathing while they slept. Her husband regarded her from inches away.

“All good?”

“A Shéamais,” Steph breathed, closing her hand over a stray clump of his faintly damp hair. “My James, all for me.”

But not forever, a nagging whisper insisted in the back of her mind, and who in god’s name would know how to look after her precious, fragile love when she was gone?

“Ow.”

Bucky moved his head, just a little, to ease his hair out of her tightening grip. “Whatcha need, a chroí?”

“Just you,” she assured him, because ‘time’ and ‘a goddamn answer’ seemed too much to ask even of her James. “I’m really okay, Bucky.”

He studied her face for a moment or two, then inclined his head first to acknowledge her authority on the subject and then to kiss her temple.

“Okay. G’night, sweet girl.”

The next thing she knows, Steph is in another darkened room with the version of her husband whose arm Tony says must be made of vibranium for Bucky to be able to lift it at all. Today he’s out cold, asleep or unconscious but for once free of all restraints, on a thin mattress on the floor of a dingy-looking apartment. The walls are dirty, crumbling in places, and Steph realizes with startling clarity that he must be on the run.

“Bucky,” she sighs, kneeling to try and fail to pull his ragged blanket more securely over his poor dear frame. She's hardly expecting to succeed- or for that metal hand to clench, painfully tight, around her wrist. Her husband’s eyes are wide and wild, his expression closer to frightened than frightening.

“What did you call me?”

The next time Steph opened her eyes the entire team was standing around the bed while her husband- the real one, the right one, the one who always knew his name- cradled her in his arms and sobbed, completely overwrought, into her shoulder. 

"Thank you," she thought he was muttering, just under his breath. "Thank you, thank you." 

She tried to touch his cheek to reassure him somehow, wondered why her wrist was aching, and felt her breath leave her body in a gasp at the sight of dark bruises that should not have been able to follow her back into the waking world. 


	5. Chapter 5

Bucky must have known Steph was awake as soon as her breathing changed- he caught her arm well before she could touch his cheek, and not at all like his dream self had.

“You’re hurt,” he realized, cradling her hand in his to take the weight off her wrist. “Doc, I think it’s-“

“Later,” Steph interrupted- she couldn’t worry about that while Bucky was still shuddering bodily, pressing Steph to his chest one-handed like he was afraid to let go. His heartbeat was an unhappy staccato sequence only just beginning to calm, and his eyes were still wet. Steph craned her neck to kiss his jaw. “Scared you good this time, huh.”

He gave a gasp that was probably supposed to have been a laugh; Steph slid the hand her husband wasn’t holding into his hair, brushing her thumb along his cheekbone to stop a teardrop in its tracks.

“Don’t, J. I’m okay.”

This time Bucky did laugh, even if it still sounded more like he was having trouble breathing.

“Just about bit my head off when _I_ said that," he muttered. Stephanie frowned- it _must_ have been worse than they were used to if Bucky was comparing the attack with falling forty feet off the side of a skyscraper.

“What happened, a chéadsearc?”

He shrugged helplessly.

“Might be easier to show you.”

Several of the others nodded right away. Stephanie turned suspicious eyes on Tony.

“You better not be sayin’ you have video surveillance in this room.”

“Certainly not,” JARVIS objected before Tony had to defend himself- it was just standard practice to turn such surveillance on when the medical alarm was sounded, just in case the doctors needed to see an episode they might have missed. That sounded useful, Steph admitted grudgingly; Bucky helped her turn, still keeping an eye on her injured hand, so she could lean back, still in his arms, and watch the wall Tony had already turned into a screen. Steph tightened her grip on Bucky’s arm because she wasn’t altogether sure it could be good for him, at all, to relive whatever it was that had shaken him so badly. He turned his face in something that was not quite a kiss, but not really a headbutt of reassurance either.

“Punk,” Stephanie muttered rebelliously; she felt his lips move as he smiled. “Go on, JARVIS.”

The footage started as it had to- Bucky was leaning over his wife, trying without success to wake her gently as she shuddered and twitched in her sleep. 

"Steph, c'mon-"

She gave a terrible, rattling gasp; Bucky was bolt upright in a second.

“Don’t you dare,” he growled, already moving into position. “JARVIS-“

“Already done, Captain. The doctor is on his way.”

He was on maybe his second round of brisk compressions when Bruce arrived with the entire team in tow.

“Sam was really close to beating Nat at Blackjack,” Clint muttered, catching Steph raising an eyebrow at the sight of them all tumbling in together. Sam grinned as Tasha scowled, but neither said anything out loud. On the screen in front of them, Bucky was too intent on making sure his wife was still breathing to care whether Banner had brought five or fifty other people with him.

“Cap,” the doctor said kindly. “I can take over when you’re-“

Stephanie gasped as the image of her flickered once and then disappeared completely.

“What?”

Her husband’s arms had tightened around her again; onscreen, the others lurched forward in a wave: Sam had both hands outstretched and Tasha already had one hand on her pistol. Bucky himself was totally immobile where he knelt.

“Tony-“

“It’s not just you,” Tony assured him, resting a stabilizing hand on Bucky’s arm. His voice was all business. “JARVIS?”

“I- don’t know. Sir.” The A.I. sounded more out of his depths than Steph had known a computer could. “According to my data Mrs. Captain Barnes is no longer on the grounds.”

“It’s not Loki,” Bucky muttered, naming the only person he knew of who could do something like that. “ He’d have to come here first, anyway, and I don’t know why he’d-”

He fell silent as Steph flickered suddenly back into being. She lay so still that Steph knew Bucky must have had to consider the possibility that she was dead; before he had to deal with that she gave a little gasp and started to struggle. Of course he caught her close immediately, dragging her into his arms with a rasping sob that was all helpless terror.

“Thank you,” he whispered. “Thank you, thank you.”

JARVIS stopped the footage just as Steph reached for her husband.

“Y’see,” Bucky muttered, still a little shaky. “That really happened.”

Steph pressed her cheek into his shoulder to show him that she was right there, and perfectly fine.

“I don’t understand,” she murmured; Clint gave a quiet chuckle.

“Join the club.”

“All your vitals are normal,” Bruce reported. He hardly had to tell Steph how different that was from every episode before- he’d very nearly put her on a blood-thinner to help manage her blood pressure before deciding that they didn’t need to find out how the serum would react to that unless they absolutely had to. “We’re reading hairline fractures in your wrist, but otherwise you’re in perfect health.”

Bucky relaxed a little, but glared pointedly at his wife.

“Later, she says. It’s fine, she says.”

He bent his head to kiss her palm- only to frown as he recognized the pattern of her bruises.

“When did someone grab you like that? It wasn’t while we were sparring.”

“I was dreaming. I startled you while you were sleeping.”

She saw Clint and Tasha exchange an incredulous look, but Bucky got it right away.

“That arm is vibranium, right, we think?”

Sam frowned.

“Are we _sure_ you couldn't have done that in your sleep?”

That would have made a lot more sense, Steph thought, but she jerked her head at the screen in front of them- before it had all gone haywire Bucky had been asleep with one hand pinned under his head and the other at Steph's waist, not even clenched uneasily in her nightclothes but just resting lightly where it lay.

“It wasn’t Cap,” Bruce confirmed, already working on binding Steph’s wrist to keep it in place long enough for the serum to take care of her injury. "This kind of force- it would have to be Tony in the suit, at least."

The whole thing was too bizarre, even for them- no wonder Bucky had reacted like that. He’d always been like that, really- where he could plan and prepare he was practically guaranteed to deliver, but that element of chaos where Loki thrived- and Tony, and to some extent maybe Natasha- always left him tense and distressed.

“Thanks,” Steph smiled as soon as her wrist was set, holding out her arm for Bucky to inspect before he had to ask. She watched his face for a long moment, then turned to Tony and the others. “He’s gonna say we should try’n get in touch with Loki.”

She was _pretty_ sure the so-called Trickster would come if it was Bucky calling, but until that moment she would never have believed that anything could have convinced her to let her husband test that theory. JARVIS cleared his artificial throat before any of the others had time to voice the objections written all over their faces.

“That will not be necessary,” a new voice announced unexpectedly; Steph gave a yelp of surprise as Bucky let go of her so he could get in front of her as their uninvited guest materialized suddenly next to Bruce.

“What in god’s name-“

“Astral projection,” Tony summarised, getting between Bucky and the new guy. “Reed can explain if you really want. Cap, Mrs. Cap- you remember Stephen Strange, right?”

That guy had been a _doctor,_ Steph started to object- but once she got over the shock of having some guy suddenly appear at the foot of her bed in a high-collared cloak she had to admit that he did look familiar. Bucky wasn't any closer to calming down.

“Sure,” he said quietly, still poised to grab his wife with both hands if anyone tried to snatch her away again. “What the hell is he doing _here_ , now?”

The doctor raised an eyebrow as if to imply that Bucky should know better than to question his judgment.

“I have come here,” he answered in a much more deliberately grand voice than he had used when they’d met him at one of Tony’s company dinners. “Now, because I thought your team would like to know that someone is practicing sorcery on your wife.”

Bucky’s glowering only intensified.

“Is that so,” he drawled; Steph wrapped her good hand around his wrist to hush him without words. Tony took over, but not before shooting a grateful look her way.

“Please say you’ve got a name, or an address, or a creepy book we can use to stop them.”

“I do have a name,” Strange admitted. “The trouble is that it seems to be my own.”


	6. Chapter 6

Forty minutes later, they were still listening to Stephen Strange explain his theory of the multiverse. He had been talking just about long enough to make Tony’s technical lectures seem succinct, and both the captain and his wife were sliding quickly from impatient towards openly resentful as Natasha kept an eye on them.

“Thanks for the heads’ up,” she cut in when Strange took a breath at last. “We can take it from here.”

She wasn’t entirely certain how they would do that, but in the short term it seemed prudent to remove the Sorcerer Supreme from the Barnes suite before Steph gave up and tried to shoot him in the not-quite-corporeal face. Stephanie shot Tasha a grateful look, but Strange himself looked at her as if he suspected she was being deliberately dense.

“I must assist. There are several spells that will be essential in warding off any further intrusions.”

Next to Tasha, both Clint and Sam cringed at the surgeon’s choice of words. Stephanie shook her head fiercely.

“You’re not doing any _spells_ on me.”

Cap tightened his arm around his wife, looking once more like he was prepared to pick her up and run if he had to. Doctor Strange brandished the scroll in his hands impatiently.

“It’s not as esoteric as it sounds. These enchantments aren’t just-“

Stephanie’s fingers were already clenched over her husband’s wrist, and Tasha was almost sure she was looking not at Strange but at the crucifix and cherry-wood rosary on the desk behind the doctor’s projection.

“I’m not looking to get enchanted either, boss.”

By this time the other Avengers were on the alert as well- ‘boss’ was rarely a good sign unless Steph was talking to the Hulk. Tony took a half-step forwards to get the sorcerer’s attention.

“We’ll figure something out,” he assured their sometime consultant. Strange shook his head solemnly.

“If she is the target of one of our organisations from another life, my magic may be the only way to-”

“She said no, big man.”

Natasha swallowed an appreciative murmur in case Clint got jealous and started threatening people to impress her. She was sure she never found that sort of thing attractive, usually, but there was something intriguing about the way James Barnes promised such swift and deadly action in so few words. His eyes, in particular, were cold as steel. Strange frowned; Natasha thought he sounded hurt.

“I’m not sure I follow.”

He turned to Tony for sympathy, or at least elaboration. “They object to _my_ help on religious grounds, but the Norse god is-”

“He’s not any kind of god,” Stephanie scoffed. “It’s not _his_ fault people thought that before our guys set them straight.”

Strange had no response to that; in the silence, Bucky caught his wife’s chin in one hand and turned her face so he could kiss her full on the lips. Of course she melted into it, uninjured hand sliding up his arm so she could tug him gently closer.

“What, Bucky?”

“Nothing,” he murmured, faintly abashed but not especially apologetic. “I love you, Agent Barnes.”

“Oh.”

She patted his arm fondly. “You too, Cap.”

Natasha rolled her eyes at the look of pure devotion on Clint’s face. More unusually, she realized, Dr. Banner was smirking- not at Cap and Steph but at Doctor Strange’s expression of pure frustration.

“This is absurd,” the sorcerer muttered. The captain, who between HYDRA and his brief time on Asgard had a high threshold for absurdity even by the standards of their team, was neither impressed nor intimidated.  

“Is it? You’re the one who turned up here without an invitation _or a body_ and started talking about spells and multiverses. For all we know it’s just _you_ harassing her, God alone knows why, and all the rest of it is bunkum.”

Clint mouthed ‘bunkum’ silently, grinning to himself.

“There’s only one multiverse,” Strange protested; Tasha saw Tony’s eyes dart to Steph’s hand, twitching in the direction of her bedside table and its drawers.

“So there is,” he agreed a trifle hastily. “Let’s pick this up tomorrow, all right? It’s late, everyone’s had a shock, you know how it is.”

The sorcerer obviously wanted to object, but it wasn’t like he had much choice.

“Make them see reason,” he commanded reluctantly. “I’ll return in the morning.”

“Late morning,” Tony suggested. “Like nineteen hundred hours or so. Bye, Stephen.”

There was a brief, tense silence after the sorcerer’s astral form faded from the room- then Sam burst out laughing.

“Sorry,” he gasped. “Sorry, sorry, I know this is a huge deal, it’s just-“

A wave of his hand indicated Steph and Bucky, still tangled together on the bed, and then Tony and Bruce already discussing their next steps. “Sometimes y’all are almost _too_ cool, you know? Here’s this guy _in a cape_ breaking the news about _multiple universes,_ and all you have to say is you’d rather deal with it using aliens than witchcraft, and don’t come too early ‘cos Stark won’t be up before noon.”

“Loki’s not an occultist,” Stephanie explained quite sternly. “We’re not doing _anything_ with spirits. And I’m not talking to that guy without Ant’ny around.”

That was fair enough, Sam had to concede; he turned to Tony expectantly.

“So how do we get hold of Loki?”

They had to do something, after all, to try and stop Stephanie being attacked again before morning. Tony shrugged apologetically.

“For the most part Thor comes to us. I’ve never tried to get hold of Loki in my whole life.”

“Heimdall,” Bucky murmured; Stephanie tilted her head at him in unspoken inquiry. “He’s their watchman, I guess. He’s supposed to know what’s going on with us.”

He raised his eyes to the ceiling, the way Steph had done when talking to JARVIS in the early days.

“If you can hear us, right, we’d appreciate a word with Loki and the big guy. Or Frigga, maybe, if she’s got the time?”

Stephanie rested her head more snugly against her husband’s chest, lacing her fingers back together with his.

“If they try’n recruit you again I’m gonna shoot them all, one by one.”

“I’m sure they know that,” Bucky assured her. “You don’t have to, though- I'd say no anyway, and if not you could just come with. Might be harder for magic-types to steal you from up there anyway, maybe.”

“I don’t know,” Banner offered. “Based on your experience alone I’d say it’s not that difficult to steal magical artefacts from Asgard.”

“Well said, Doctor."

Loki smiled slightly. "Though generally I find it does help if you have an army.”

“That’s it,” Stephanie decided, admirably calm considering the trickster was suddenly watching her from only feet away. “Tomorrow we’re going back to Brooklyn, and we’re going to bed with the goddamn door locked, Bucky, okay?”

“Don’t,” the captain ordered, stopping Loki cold before he could remind Stephanie that her bedroom door would hardly be enough to deny him entry if he wanted it. “Just don’t, okay? It’s three in the morning, and that whackjob thinks some other version of himself is trying to steal her from us. Which would be fine, right, because we’ve dealt with psychopaths before, except-“

His voice faltered there, the first sign of real worry leaking through the mask of military calm as he lifted his wife’s damaged hand, ever so gently, for Loki to see.

“Except apparently some other me just broke her wrist, right, so _something_ ’s going on we can’t fix with a shield and three guns.”

“Indeed,” Loki murmured, more subdued than Tasha had ever seen him. He glanced between the captain and his wife with something approaching concern in his usually maniacal eyes. “My mother foresaw it; she gave Heimdall leave to let me know as soon as you had need of us.”

Tasha’s hand tightened on her pistol as Loki reached out, but all he did was rest a hand, just for a moment, on Bucky’s shoulder.

“Lady Frigga has a suggestion,” he said quietly. When the captain smiled very faintly, Loki seemed to steel himself before glancing fleetingly at Stephanie. “I promise no spirits are involved.”

“Just try it,” she drawled, practically encouraging him to do it. “I’ll still shoot you if you hurt him.”

“He remembers,” Bucky murmured, nudging her too gently for it to be called any kind of reproach.

“Just to recap,” Sam mumbled for the record. “We were enjoying a quiet night in, and I was _just_ about to _win_ , and then someone stole our Mrs. Captain right out of her bed, and then a magician showed up and said it was some other version of him from _a different universe_ , _and then_ we got Loki to drop in from god-knows-where but that’s okay because he’s our friend now, except Stephanie’s still going to shoot him if he tries anything, and everyone’s just fine with this?”

“Yep,” Clint nodded after a moment. “That’s pretty much it, Wilson, thanks.”

He turned to Loki, much more comfortable addressing the frost giant directly than Tasha would have expected. “So let’s hear this plan, then.”


	7. Chapter 7

“No!”

Stark’s weathered fist met his desk with a crash that made the other jump- it was easy, sometimes, to forget that the old man had once worn quite another kind of expensive suit, but on occasion he did still show his strength. “What went wrong? How did we lose her? You said it was working!”

The sorcerer’s gloved hands waved in an impatient dismissal Strange was still too out of breath to deliver verbally.  

“It was working,” Richards told his employer mildly. “After which it stopped working. We can try again in a few days.”

The older man glared.

“We should try again now.”

* * *

 

Loki hadn’t arrived with a plan, it turned out, so much as presents from his mam.

“Shiny,” Hawkeye observed, snatching the golden strands right out of Bucky’s hands so he could shove them at Tony for his inspection. “How do we know they’re safe? Or useful?”

The trickster cast a plaintive look in Bucky’s direction.

“Have I not _just_ explained that they will keep you bound to one another?”

He had, Bucky conceded readily, but Barton was looking to Iron Man for a _how_ rather than a _what._ Stephanie sighed, prepared to ignore all of them, but paused to frown when her husband pulled her closer so she had to sit more upright.

“Hey. Stay awake for me, Steph, okay?”  
“Sorry,” she mumbled. It made a kind of sense, she thought, whether it was because they were actual nightmares or because the astral guy was right and people were trying to snatch her while she slept. Bucky sighed, pressing a sympathetic kiss to her hair.

“You want we should take this downstairs or something?”

If they could keep moving, he probably meant, it would be easier for Steph to keep her eyes open long enough for Tony to give Loki’s tethering necklaces the all-clear. Steph shook her head, not quite willing to move. She was comfortable there, and he was all warm and safe and Bucky. She shook herself a little, trying harder, and fixed her eyes on the images JARVIS had pulled up, which showed their new jewellery under the highest magnification Tony’s systems could provide.

“I’m okay. What’s going on with the magic necklaces?”

“Science necklaces,” Tony corrected her, low and distracted in the way that meant he was still working the details out. “Eventually I’d like to show them to Reed- maybe Hank if we can get hold of him- but as far as I can make out they connect at a subatomic level when the feedback loops are closed.”

Sam pulled a face, but Clint got there first.

“Which means what, for those of us without multiple advanced degrees?”

“It means what I said,” Loki grumbled. “They are made to interlink; once the captain and Stephanie are bound to them they will ensure that they cannot be separated."

“Wait,” Bruce said sharply, abandoning the computer graphics to stalk towards Loki. The others tensed, but the beeping they all knew to listen out for was not yet to be heard. “Your plan is to anchor her _to him_ to stop them, is that it?”

“My mother’s plan,” Loki protested; Steph thought it was at least partly intended to assure the team that they were not necessarily trusting him by tolerating his intervention. “But that is the gist of it, yes.”

The doctor continued to frown- and Tony had joined him, now.

“How do we know they won’t wind up taking him through with her instead?”

 _That_ was a good question- Steph felt suddenly very wide awake, clenching her hand on Bucky’s thigh as if to pin him to the bed so he wouldn’t have to go through what she already had. Bucky caught her hand and held it tight.

“None,” Loki conceded baldly, but his voice was as gentle as they’d ever heard it. “But in that case they would at least be together, which will reduce their distress by half, and you will have a signal to follow when you set out to retrieve them.”

Several people spoke up at once, Tasha agreeing with Bruce that it was too dangerous to try while Sam ventured quietly that he thought Loki had a point. Bucky was talking to the trickster himself, murmuring his thanks the way Sarah and Winifred had raised their kids to do- Steph was still smiling at that thought when her eyes slipped shut. That, it turned out, was all it took.

“No! No, Steph, please-”

It seemed more violent the second time- they saw her rematerialize, eyes wide with terror as she fought for air, but when Bucky moved to help her his arms passed right through her trembling form.

“Doc-“

Banner had thrown himself forward, desperate to assist, but there wasn’t much he could do for a patient they couldn’t touch. For a long moment Loki just watched, eyes narrowed as he considered the situation. Finally he darted sideways, relieving Tony and JARVIS of their specimens, and reappeared between Bucky and the doctor. He pressed one of the necklaces into Bucky’s hand, closing the boy’s fingers around it to keep it secure, and then concentrated hard on the young woman’s flickering form. His mother’s magic did what raw longing could not- Loki made contact long enough to fasten the chain around Stephanie’s neck. After that it only took a rapid joining of the ethers, which Stark would no doubt call by some other name entirely and which his team would understand no better, and then the captain’s arms fastened gratefully around his wife’s now-tangible form. “Steph, Stephanie, sweetheart-”

The girl filled her lungs with an ugly, rattling gasp that sounded more like it might bring death than life.

“Hush,” her husband pleaded before she tried to speak, straining to provide relief in whatever way he could. “Don’t, a chroí. It’s okay, I’ve got you.”

She collapsed against him with an exhausted, frightened whimper.

“I’m here,” he promised, still anticipating unspoken requests. “I’m right here, a chroí. I’ve got you, Steph, okay?”

“Stark,” a new figure intoned; Loki privately vowed to slit the throat of any man who dared to suggest that he had startled at the man’s sudden appearance.

“Astral projection,” Natasha Romanova muttered without commenting on his reaction; Loki nodded regally instead of confessing that he hadn’t the least idea what that was meant to signify.

“Yeah,” Iron Man acknowledged in a wry voice. “They’re back. We noticed, thanks.”

“They have found a focal point,” the intruder announced. He sounded concerned, but also frustrated, a combination which left Loki listening somewhat uneasily for that tell-tale clap of thunder. “They are unlikely to give up until they see a result.”

“No spells,” Stephanie rasped; her husband kissed her softly.

“We know, Stephanín.”

He could not help but notice the tears gathering in her eyes. "What is it, a ghrá?"

“I can't," she confessed, letting her eyes close only to open them wide with obvious difficulty. "I know you want me to stay'wake, but-" 

"Shh." The captain’s gaze flitted anxiously towards the doctor’s before finding Loki's. "What do we have to do so she can get some kind of rest?" 

“They will find it difficult to separate you,” Loki offered when the doctor did not speak. "And as I say we will at least have a way to trace you should they succeed in making off with both of you." 

The captain nodded reluctantly; it seemed to Loki that the entire room held its breath as Stephanie's eyes closed again. Nothing happened, however; James bent his head to kiss her forehead, then busied himself with putting the girl to bed. The astral projection glared at Loki as if he were guilty of some personal affront.

“She would be much safer if you would permit me to identify a more permanent solution.”

“Sure,” the captain agreed, watching his wife intently as though he still feared she might be taken from him if he dared to rest. “But no spells, like she said. And tomorrow, maybe, okay? Some of us have had a hell of a night.”

A pointed look from Stark had the boy looking faintly abashed.

“Thanks,” he added, not entirely reluctantly. The spectre inclined its head, bid Stark and Banner a more personal farewell, and then dissipated. Loki refused to question the phenomenon.

“Don’t be jealous,” Iron Man advised him cheerfully. “He might show you how if you ask nicely. Are you sticking around or going back to wherever, or what? Not that that was an invitation, understand- I just need to know how closely JARVIS needs to watch you.”

“Tony,” the captain warned; Stark looked apologetic, but not enough to revise his choice of words. Loki turned to address James Barnes, and only him.

“You may ask for us the same way, if we can be of assistance. Heimdall will be watching.”

The boy reached out, innocent as a lamb, and grasped his hand in wordless gratitude.

“You others,” Loki drawled, lest they imagine he had grown soft in his long absence. “Will have to rely on the thunderer, I’m afraid.”

He took himself away, still grinning, before any could reply.

* * *

“Still not enough,” Stark hissed. “We need to go in harder. How soon can we try again?”

“Not immediately,” Strange murmured, finding his voice with an effort. “It’s punishing work, you know- for young Stephanie as well as for myself.”

For the first time, the architect of their endeavor showed something like concern. He turned, frowning, to Dr. Richards.

“You said it wouldn’t hurt her.”

“I said it was unlikely to do her any lasting damage,” the astrophysicist corrected him impassively. “In the act it has the potential to be quite traumatic, especially if she’s awake at the time.”

Doctor Strange nodded his agreement.

“She may well need time to recover.”

Stark glowered.

“There’s too much at stake. We need to try again.”

“Soon,” Richards agreed, stretching out an arm to tap his employer’s shoulder gently. “But perhaps not _so_ soon that we risk it all for nothing.”

The billionaire frowned at the readouts in front of him for a long, sober moment.

“Fine,” he growled. “As soon as you’re ready.”


	8. Chapter 8

“I’m familiar with multiverse theory," Reed admitted. "But why exactly would I have built a machine with that kind of capability?”

Tony shrugged, impatient- for him it was usually a question of whether he could possibly build whatever it was he had in mind rather than _why_ he would.

“I don’t know,” he grumbled, suddenly annoyed that he couldn’t just go ahead and build the damn thing without outside assistance. “To steal innocent women from their husbands, I guess, because intergalactic PTSD isn’t enough of a challenge for people who’ve already survived 70 years on ice after two year’s active duty fighting serum-enhanced Nazis.”

Reed tore his gaze away from the notes Tony had brought with him.

“I take it this isn’t as hypothetical as you said on the phone.”

Four years of friendship strongly suggested that both Steph and Bucky would prefer for Tony to keep his mouth shut; both logic and experience indicated that Reed was much more likely to produce results in response to clear, recent data and a specific deadline. Tony took a deep breath, promised himself that he’d take his father’s friends to dinner by way of apology, and told Reed everything he knew. By the time he’d had HERBIE pull up JARVIS’s files on the necklaces Loki had supplied, he knew Reed was well and truly on board.

“Fascinating,” Reed murmured, elongating his neck so he could crane around to see the 3D scan from behind.

“No!” Tony objected, thinking mostly of the impotent anxiety with which an entire room of Avengers had had to watch Stephanie scream and struggle somewhere beyond their reach until Loki, of all people, had offered an interim solution. “It’s not _fascinating_ , it’s excruciating.”

“That too,” the physicist allowed. “And you say this has worked so far?”

The matching necklaces were a little _Lord of the Rings_ for Tony’s taste, but after eight full days had come and gone without one of those god-damned attacks he was prepared to concede that Team Asgard-and-Loki had done well by them.

“Cap’s not taking any chances either.”

Bucky, possibly for lack of any other way to help his wife, had taken every word Doctor Strange had said to heart. Of course there would be no spells, he said whenever Stephanie scowled at the mention of poor Stephen, but if the _surgeon, Steph, okay_ was right about the link between active consciousness and Steph’s vulnerability to attack then he thought it stood to reason that she’d be safer if one of them was awake, and so anchored to their own reality, at all times. Reed nodded, following the logic of it.

“He’s lucky that serum works the way it does.”

Tony nodded with feeling- he’d done well more than his share of sleepless weeks, but not quite the way Cap did it. Fortunately the fact that the serum did work the way it did meant that he wasn’t actually heading for some kind of epic crash, but seemed to get by fine on the two or three hours’ sleep Steph enforced by picking a movie, demanding that Bucky watch it with her, and then smoothing her fingers through his hair until he gave up, usually still muttering about her tyrannical behavior, and got what rest they could afford to give him.

“Does that seem sustainable?”

Tony shrugged- Bucky showed every sign of being quite willing to give up normal sleeping hours for good, and so far they’d seen no sign that he was much the worse for it. On the other hand, Tony’s own attempts at giving up sleep altogether seemed to back up the literature JARVIS, Rhodey, Pepper and pretty much every doctor, therapist and secretary he’d ever had had shoved at him at some point- life just had a way of collecting on a sleep debt one way or another.

“That’s why I’m here.”

Stephen Strange had been absolutely certain that his ‘other self’ was involved in whatever was happening to Steph. He had recognized his own magical signature, he explained- at the Sanctum Sanctorum, where Tony and Bruce had paid him a visit while Clint and Tasha kept Steph and her husband occupied far, far away- and that kind of thing couldn’t be imitated or replicated under any circumstances. Certainly, he insisted, his spells _could_ shift a person’s consciousness the way he believed had been done to Steph- but just as certainly he himself had never done it to anyone, and in any case he had no suggestion as to how his particular brand of magic could be used to move the corporeal form as well.

“So we asked ourselves who we knew who could conceivably come up with something that would facilitate that kind of inter-dimensional transwarp involuntary beam-out or whatever it is, and, I mean- who else is it going to be?”

Reed offered him a small, pleased smile and bent over to devote renewed attention to the notes Tony had brought.

“And if one version of me could do it-“

Tony nodded eagerly. Mr. Fantastic reached around him to snag a pencil from the desk across the room. “I’ll give it some thought immediately.”

Tony sighed- he’d been hoping for something more along the lines of ‘yes, I built _that_ thing years ago- should we get it out of storage?’

“Thanks,” he said anyway- no doubt they would be glad of all the help they could get if Frigga’s necklaces proved inadequate. “I’ve got JARVIS tracking those things for now- let us know if we can assist, okay?”

Reed nodded absently, already running the numbers.

* * *

 

“You’re _sure_ you’ll be okay.”

Stephanie- finally actually feeling like Agent Barnes again, complete with new thigh holsters for the pistols Tony had re-balanced just for her in celebration of three whole weeks without nightmares or worse- glared at her husband.

“If you ask me that again I’m going to-“

“What, set fire to my hair? Shoot me in the face?”

Bucky was grinning, but the look in his eyes was tender, and just worried enough to stop Steph from snapping at him that nothing was wrong, and he was an ass for not believing her the first fifty times he'd asked.

“This face? Never.”

She reached up to fix his hair, mostly for an excuse to drag her fingertips up along his jaw. “Stay sharp. I’ve got your six.”

He grinned that same old perfectly kissable grin.

“Guess I’ll be just fine, then.”

Steph leaned in a second before Bucky would have; she kissed him just a little more aggressively than she thought he’d been expecting. “Go get ‘em, Cap.”

This time, his smile was just a little breathless.

“You got it, kid.”

“That never gets old,” Clint muttered as Steph followed suit a few seconds later, providing cover like they had agreed.

“You _would_ be into roleplay,” Tasha grumbled; before he could defend himself, she leaned in and flicked off his mic. “Tell Stark about this and I’ll cut you where you’ll notice.”

“What are you-“

She cut him off with a brief, fierce kiss.

“Cover me, will ya?”

And then she, too, was gone, leaving Clint staring after her more like a wide-eyed calf than a sharpshooter of any worth.

“Go get ‘em,” he murmured, not that she could hear him, and tuned back into their comm lines before taking up his own position. “Does anyone have eyes on the aerial guys?”

Sam scowled fiercely as he executed another mid-air feint to avoid a second volley of cannonfire.

“Remind me again why you get full-body armour and rocketboots, and I get wings and goggles?”

“Because I’m Iron Man,” Tony offered, which- was more or less what Sam knew to expect. “But if you keep up we can talk about some upgrades.”

One good thing about working of the scion of capitalism himself, Sam had found already, was that Tony Stark knew a thing or two about offering effective incentives.

“Upgrades,” he murmured approvingly. “I like the sound of-“

“Bucky!”

That was Steph, not mildly reproving in her usual overprotective way but genuinely worried. JARVIS was already enhancing Tony’s field of vision, zooming in on Steph as she darted from her concealed spot to grab her husband by both shoulders before he lost his footing on the rooftop.

“Stupid boy,” she hissed, still breathing hard from the scare he hadn’t meant to give her. “Sometimes I wish you’d just go back to using your bloody rifle.”

“I’m okay,” Bucky said for the team’s benefit, but Tony was sure he could hear an apology in Cap’s voice. “Thanks, Steph.”

She smiled, obviously on the verge of saying something equal parts cutting and affectionate- until her husband paled.

“Get down.”

“What? Bucky, I-“

Instead of answering, Cap tackled his wife right off the edge of the roof. Stephanie gave a startled yell that was almost immediately drowned out by the entire team reacting to what Bucky had already seen- the armoured shell he’d dragged Steph over the edge to avoid took off most of the roof that had been their only protection from a 20-foot drop.

“Coming,” Sam was muttering, already diving towards them. Tony followed suit at full throttle. “Hang on, we're coming, hang on-“

Tony thanked the God he wasn’t always sure he believed in first that his father had considered vibranium research a worthwhile investment and second that Bucky had kept his grip on the shield as they fell. It was the only reason the Avengers had any reason to expect that they might find either of their teammates alive, let alone in any condition to stay on a special ops team, but even that near-perfect shock absorption couldn’t negate all the effects of such a drop- Tony saw Cap raise his head, trying to speak, and then drop heavily and fail to rise again.

“Steph, are you-“

She was still wrapped in his arms, as safe as he could possibly have made her, but the blast must have fried her headset. Tony hit the ground hard, only a few feet away. Clint had rounded the corner on the other side of the building; Tasha wasn't far behind.

“Steph,” Sam cried, landing with much more grace than Tony had. “Steph, hey, let me-“

He fell silent as their teammates vanished into thin air, Stephanie first and her husband about a half-second later. Clint said nothing, but flung his bow to the ground hard enough to snap the strings.

* * *

“Let them go.”

Stark lurched to his feet against countless doctors’ orders.

“What? Richards, you can’t be-“

“Do you hear that?”

The steady beeping that had accompanied their last few experiments was rapidly rising to a scream. “That’s not a sign that things are going well.”

His hands flew over the controls, neck craning unnaturally from time to time as he consulted other screens. In his chair across from the other two, Stephen Strange was beginning to mutter again. The gentle blue glow that had been emitting from his hands for the last hour or so glowed suddenly yellow. Reed pursed his lips.

“That’s bad as well.”

The sorcerer groaned as if in pain.

“Stephen,” Reed said more loudly. Strange fixed him with a feeble, fevered stare. “We have to let them go. They won’t survive if we force it.”

Next to him, Stark was scowling fiercely- but making no move to interfere. “On my count.”

He waited for the sorcerer to nod.

“Three, two, one- now.”

The sorcerer’s eyes squeezed shut; his aura glowed a dazzling white before fading completely as Stephen slumped back, badly winded. Reed held out a glass of water without leaving his console.

“Well,” he said quietly. “They are a _little_ closer to us now.”

Stark frowned, tilting his head curiously as the oddity in Reed’s choice of words registered at last.

“Why do you keep saying ‘they’?”

* * *

 

Bucky opened his eyes in a room that wasn’t his own, though it looked enough like it to confuse him for a moment. Tony must have sprung for the _good_ doctors this time, he realized- he felt pretty damn good for a guy who’d only recently jumped off a building _again._ Bucky cast a guilty look towards his wife, but Steph was still out for the count. She looked fine, he decided- then frowned. She looked a little too fine- there was no trace of the bruising he couldn’t possibly have protected her from, or the graze she’d got scrambling over roof tiles to get him. He grabbed his wife’s hand, but gently, and held on. Only moments later, Steph’s eyes flew open.

“Tá mé anseo,” Bucky promised before she could jolt upright in a panic and make herself lightheaded. “Tá tú slán, a chroí.”

She nodded slowly, eyes sharp as they searched Bucky’s for signs of trouble. He let his lips graze hers, afraid to put pressure on any strain they didn’t know about yet, but Steph just smiled against his lips and put her arms around his neck so he would know to help her up.

“You were bleeding,” she murmured once they were upright- then tilted her head curiously as she seemed to suddenly notice that they hadn't switched back to English yet. “How long’ve we been out?”

“Going on three hours,” a new voice said. The blonde in the doorway was almost as tall as Thor and about as broad. There was something familiar about his face, Bucky thought as the stranger tilted his head curiously as he glanced from Steph to Bucky and back again. “What language was that?”

“Irish,” Steph murmured automatically. “Where are we?”

“Red Hook.”

Bucky laughed softly at the way his wife relaxed immediately, turning to kiss her temple when she raised an eyebrow to ask what was wrong with him.

“That make you feel better, Brooklyn girl?”

She nodded solemnly, then looked to their apparent host for details.

“Can I ask how we got here?”

The stranger gave an eloquent, rippling shrug.

“We were hoping you could tell us that.”

He smiled, a wide, boyish smile that revealed two rows of almost perfect teeth, and Bucky felt his knees go weak as the penny dropped. “My name is-“

“Steve,” he blurted out, tightening his grip on his wife because if Stephen Strange had been right about one thing he could well be right about the rest of it. “You’re Steve Rogers.”


	9. Chapter 9

Steve had just about nodded his head when the girl on the bed collapsed against her partner, shoulders shaking. The young man kissed her forehead as he took her weight, but grinned at Steve over her shoulder.

“Easy,” he urged her, too softly for Steve to doubt that he was superhuman too. “You’re scaring our Steve, sweetheart.”

It was only when she pulled away, still giggling quietly, that Steve realized the young woman had been overwhelmed with laughter rather than tears.

“Steve Rogers,” she murmured, and the wry delight in her expression was familiar enough to bring tears to Steve’s eyes. “You can’t imagine how long we’ve been picturing this.”

Before he knew what he was doing Steve had crossed the room to sit by the pair of them so he could pull the girl into a warm embrace. She was frozen in his arms at first, taken entirely by surprise, but after a moment he felt her delicate hands settle about his shoulders as she returned the hug. She was strong for her size, he thought- but then again of _course_ she was.

“Hi,” she offered, a little unsure; Steve found himself laughing raggedly against her soft, bright gold hair.

“Hi yourself. You look just like your grandmother, you know that?”

She shook her head, glancing back at the boy for support. He didn’t intervene, but caught her hand and held on. Steve resisted the urge to kiss her forehead, frowning as he realized they hadn’t actually finished their introductions. “What’s your name, sweetheart?”

“Stephanie,” she smiled. “What else, right?”

Steve cleared his throat with an effort. It wasn’t what he would have chosen, he thought, but from everything he’d seen so far it seemed pretty clear that he _hadn’t_ chosen.

“Right. You grew up with your mom?”

Stephanie’s expression turned gentler, and maybe a little more knowing.

“Yeah. You too, huh.”

“Me too.”

Steve gave her a final squeeze before he let her go. “God, you’re so beautiful.”

The young man still holding her hand frowned, just slightly.

“Listen, you know that she’s-”

“And you’re  _married_ ,” Steve interrupted eagerly, not only to reassure the boy. Of course he’d noticed their matching rings when he’d made his first inspection of the couple that had materialized out of nowhere in his living room, but it was a different thing now he knew that one of them was  _Stephanie Rogers._  He gave the kid an assessing glance and was pleased to find it returned with steady confidence. “You with the army, son?”

“Used to be,” the boy offered. “We’ve been backing up Stark’s team for a while now.”

Steve felt his expression freeze.

“You do mean Tony Stark? Iron Man?”

They nodded together. “And you're- that is, he treats you well?”

"Of course."

The boy's voice was defensive. Steve wondered what to make of the concern in Stephanie’s eyes- she obviously had no idea why he found that difficult to believe.

"Do you two...not get along?"

It was too long a story, Steve decided- especially if it was apparently going to be ancient history in a few decades. 

“He was my best friend for decades.”

That much would always be true. “But you were saying- you’re both Avengers?”

Stephanie rested her cheek against her husband’s shoulder with a casual, possessive pride that made Steve’s chest ache at the thought of everything they must have had to figure out on their own.

“They’re his Avengers, pretty much.”

The boy kissed her cheek.

“They did that for you and you know it.”

“No, they-”

“Rogers! Why’s your magician insisting that there are- oh.“

Steve couldn’t begin to imagine what they looked like, sitting close together on the edge of his bed, but Bucky seemed to get the picture fairly quickly. “Well. I’ll be damned.”

“I know,” Steve muttered, unable to stop his own grin. He opened his mouth to make the introductions, but once again the kids were two steps ahead.

“Bucky,” Stephanie whispered; both Steve and her husband nodded. This, somehow, seemed to phase the other two more than meeting Steve himself had- Stephanie stumbled to her feet, taking her husband with her, and stopped just short of grabbing the one-time Winter Soldier’s metal wrist. “You’re his Bucky.”

Steve cringed, preparing to intervene, but his friend favoured the couple with one of his less hostile smirks.

“Generally I prefer to think of myself as my own person these days," he said mildly, offering the young man his hand first. “James Barnes.”

“Yeah,” Stephanie's husband agreed with a smirk of his own. “I got that.”

Steve hadn’t even learnt his name yet, he realized guiltily- he’d been too curious about Stephanie, and then too taken aback by the news that they had found a place on Tony’s team. He was on the point of asking, or apologizing, when Stephanie frowned. She left her partner’s side for the first time, resting a hand on Bucky’s shoulder as she peered into his face with curious focus. Bucky’s eyebrows were climbing already, but he made no move to avoid the uninvited proximity.

“Your eyes are brown," she protested, strangely aggrieved. Bucky nodded slowly.

“Did you expect something else?”

Stephanie shrugged, tilting her head to indicate the boy now standing slightly behind her.

“Guess I figured they’d be grey.”

Her husband was trying so hard not to laugh out loud that his eyes- which were in fact a striking pale grey- were beginning to water. Stephanie glowered at him when she noticed, but looped her arm through his to tug him closer. “What? Look at him if you don’t-“

He stopped her objections with a finger to her lips, mostly childish but also intimate in a way Steve wasn’t sure he’d ever experienced in his own life.  

“I believe you, Stephanie. You know that’s not the only thing about this that’s hard to swallow, right?”

Bucky gave a rare snort of amusement, obviously agreeing; Stephanie turned to include the one-time Winter Soldier in the glare that had started out directed at her husband.

“You can both of you shut right up.”

When her husband only grinned at her, Steve realised with a shock that he did know where he’d seen that smile before. He hadn’t realised it immediately because he’d spent _years_ learning to see Bucky Barnes in the solemn soldier he knew now rather than the openly affectionate, effortlessly charming kid he’d known during the war, but once he’d had the thought it was impossible to ignore the resemblance.

“My God,” he breathed. “Bucky, he’s- and they’re-“

“Steve,” the younger Barnes broke in, still quiet but also urgent, somehow. “We’re not your kids, okay?”

“What?”

He wasn’t alone, either- Stephanie had spoken with him, and was now looking between Steve and her husband as if trying to divine what hidden exchange she’d missed. The boy laid a compassionate, steadying hand on his arm.

“She doesn’t know her gran because her mam left Dublin in 1916, not because you'n your wife did anything wrong.”

“I’m not married,” Steve objected somewhat inanely; the guy who wasn’t Bucky’s son nodded.

“Future wife, then. It's not on you, I'm saying.”

“Oh,” Stephanie murmured, deeply sympathetic. When Steve looked to Bucky for help, or at least an explanation, he found his friend grinning already.

“Is _that_ what you thought?”

He turned to the other brunette with a more admiring look than Steve had seen him give anyone but Natasha in a long time. “You got there quickly.”

The boy shrugged, wrapping an arm around his wife to pull her gently closer.

“This girl thought she was seeing the future too, the first time. And she makes that same face when she’s working herself up about things that can’t possibly be her fault.”

“I do not,” Stephanie objected; her husband kissed her temple instead of arguing. Bucky still looked intrigued.

“The _first_ time? Does this happen often?”

“Wait,” Steve interjected, not even close to catching on. “What’s _this,_ exactly?”

Both of the other men smiled, but it was the one Steve knew who gripped his elbow in solidarity as he answered.

“They’re not our kids, Steve. They’re us, except you’re a woman for some reason. And they're married. To each other.”

Steve gaped. Stephanie looked faintly insulted.

“Or your one’s a guy ' _for some reason_ ,' did you think of that?”

Steve could honestly say he hadn’t.


	10. Chapter 10

“We didn’t plan for this.”

Richards was as frantic as his colleagues had ever seen him. “None of this was designed to move _two_ people.”

Stark nodded grimly.

“We’ll have to separate them.”

Richards frowned in Stephen’s direction.

“Is that a good idea? To interfere before we’ve fully-“

Their employer laughed. It was a brisk, bitter sound far removed from anything reminiscent of the man who had inspired them to begin the project so many years before.

“I think we’re past the point of wondering whether it’s a good idea to interfere, don’t you?”

He gestured sharply at the ever-shifting map of the multiverse which Richards had helped Stephen make tangible for their use. “The longer we leave them there, the more the timelines shift, isn’t that right?”

That was how Stephen had understood it; Richards agreed as well. Stark looked regretful, but not reluctant.  

“It’s for the best, then, isn’t it?”

The astrophysicist glared reproachfully at his data as though willing it to rearrange itself to reveal another outcome.

“So we strand her companion out there without a way home?”

Stark shook his shaggy head.

“We can bring the other one through later, if that’s what she wants. I need the girl here as soon as possible, you know that.”

Stephen wasn’t altogether sure any of them knew what was necessary any longer.

“We may as well try,” he decided, and closed his eyes as the mystic tide began to wash over his awareness.

* * *

Of course it had taken Steve all of three minutes to go from bewildered to fascinated. At least he’d stopped trying to hug the girl, James thought. He smirked to himself at the sight of Captain America, eager as a child, peppering the alternate, female version of himself with so many questions in quick succession that the poor girl looked quite confused herself. When Stephanie shot her husband an appealing glance, plainly overwhelmed, James decided it was time to intervene on their behalf.

“Cool it, Cap. They can’t answer if you don’t take a breath yourself.”

“Sorry,” Steve muttered immediately, offering the couple an apologetic smile. “Sometimes I get ahead of myself.”

He paused.

“In more ways than one this time, apparently.”

The girl laughed quietly, but her husband looked deeply unimpressed all of a sudden.

“Wait, wait. Is that Cap like Captain Rogers or Captain goddamn America again?”

“Both,” Steve offered after a second. He was frowning too, now. “What’s your objection to Captain America?”

“How did _you_ get stuck with-”

Stephanie whipped around as the boy cut himself off with a gasp.

“Bucky?”

He seemed to be beyond speech- his eyes, already bloodshot, were faintly panicked. His wife pressed one delicate hand to his cheek, claiming his attention. “Hey. Take a breath for me, sweetheart.”

James watched the younger- softer, gentler, entirely alien- version of himself struggle to obey. The kid's wife smiled, touching her lips to his jaw to reward the effort.

“Good boy. Again, a thaisce. That’s right.”

Her voice was perfectly even, giving very little sign of the horror which was written clear as day across Steve’s face. James shoved at him with a metal elbow, but Cap only looked _closer_ to bursting into sympathetic tears as Stephanie pressed her husband back against the cushions of Steve’s worn leather sofa.  

“You’re okay, a rún. Steve.”

Cap’s eyes were huge as his head snapped up. Stephanie smiled apologetically. “Could we get some hot water please, you think?”  

From the way Bucky was heaving James thought it looked more like they were going to need some kind of epidural, but Steve nodded almost gratefully and disappeared with purpose in every line of his fighting stance.

“Poor Bucky,” Stephanie murmured, sliding off the couch altogether so she could kneel by her husband. “We’re gonna fix this, okay?”

She didn't seem too phased by the fact that they had very little idea of what 'this' even was. Suddenly aware that he was watching another version of Steve cuddling a version of himself, James fled for the kitchen. He found Steve arranging his best linens around a bowl of freshly boiled water like their lives might depend on the symmetry of it.

“You okay?”

“Fine,” Cap barked. He looked as surprised as James for a second, then his expression gentled. “Sorry. I’m fine. Is he doing okay?”

“Needs a doctor about ten minutes ago,” James offered instead of saying outright that he thought things were getting worse and quickly.

“I may be able to help with that,” Stephen Strange announced, suddenly right behind them. If they hadn’t both been serum-enhanced in their own ways, James was sure one or both of them would have ended up scalded and wearing an assortment of small washcloths.

“Jeez,” Steve growled, clutching his bowl a little closer. “Thanks for coming.”   

Doctor Strange took in their agitation with obvious concern.

“Is it so bad already?”

Bucky nodded with Steve, who was worrying his lip like he did when he wasn’t sure his team had quite the expertise they needed for the job.

“I hope a doctor is all he needs. Apparently they’ve been trying to-“

He fell silent at the sound of a fractured gasp from the other room.

“Yes,” Stephen agreed simply. “Luckily, a doctor isn’t all I am, is it?”

By the time they were all back in the other room, Stephanie had managed to get her husband upright and out of his shirt, so she could press one of Steve’s warm cloths to the boy’s neck almost as soon as it was offered.

“Thanks,” she murmured, smiling faintly as her husband groaned against her neck. James tried not to look at the smooth, unscarred line of his shoulder. “That’s better, huh? We’re gonna figure this out, okay? They’ve got their Doctor Strange and everything.”

Her Bucky raised his head, murmuring something only Stephanie seemed to understand- she kissed his cheek before urging him back to rest.

“No, just Stephen same as ours.”

She smiled at the newcomer, friendly but also faintly challenging. “He thought maybe you’d be Stephanie, y’know?”

Steve choked as Bucky fought a grin, but the sorcerer only smiled serenely.

“No doubt I am in many versions. May I assist?”

He was already reaching out. Stephanie drew herself up, and suddenly James _could_ see Steve in the hard lines of her defensive posture.

“No spells,” she said sternly. “Or anything else weird.”

Again, Stephen looked more touched than affronted.

“I propose to find out what’s already being done, and stop that if I can.”  

“But you won’t, I dunno, enchant him or something.”

“Steph,” her husband protested, utterly affectionate even as his voice shook. Stephanie ran a protective hand over his hair, staring Stephen down until the sorcerer gave his word that he would not.

“Fine.”

She kissed the boy as he curled into her with another breathy gasp. “I love you. You’re gonna be fine. I’ve got you, a Shéamais.”

Strange closed his eyes, waving a gloved hand as he began to mutter under his breath. James glanced sideways to find Steve frowning right along with Stephanie. It seemed to him that neither of them breathed at all until the sorcerer opened his eyes again. Strange was sweating slightly, and frowning very deeply.

“They wish to separate you.”

Stephanie scowled, her grip on her husband tightening perceptibly.

“They can’t have him.”

The boy laughed raggedly.

“’m not the one they want.”  

His eyes were worried. “’s this gonna happen t’her too?”

“Don’t start that,” Stephanie protested. “We’re worrying about _you_ now.”

She kissed his forehead before he could object.

“They can’t have me either, okay? Both together or no deal, that’s how the cookie crumbles.”

Her husband’s face reflected everyone else’s surprise.

“What?”

Stephanie shrugged, vaguely defiant.

“Clint said that once. I kinda like it.”

She frowned at Stephen. “Can you not make them, you know. _Not_ separate us? He should listen to you, right? Our one said he _was_ you. One of you.”  

Her fingers, playing at the base of her husband’s neck, caught on the necklace he wore.

“Oh,” Stephanie murmured, obviously surprised. When she looked up, her sheepish expression was so familiar that James could no longer doubt that he would have recognized her, eventually, as another Steve Rogers.

“What are you thinking?”

“Could you guys get Loki to help, you think? If you know how to get in touch-“

She let the thought trail off at the sight of their blank, concerned expressions. “Yeah, never mind.”

Stephanie bent to press another kiss to her husband’s clammy skin.

“Of course you’re the only idiot who wants to be friends with that madman.”

The kid smiled a little.

“Kept us t’gether, d’n’t he?”

“That was your Frigga,” she protested, replacing the cloth at his neck. “Even he said that. Rest, you.”

“Bossy,” her husband muttered,  clasping her free hand securely in his own as he closed his eyes obediently. “Stubborn, contr’lling wretch.”

Stephanie scoffed, brushing the boy’s fringe out of his eyes.

“Learnt it growin’ up with you, didn’t I?”

 The sorcerer supreme chuckled quietly, glancing between Steve and James with his eyebrows arched.

“In some ways the resemblance is very strong,” he said mildly, then his expression grew solemn. “We can’t let this go on indefinitely.”

Steve nodded, expression distant. James frowned- he’d known that look since the war, and it had almost never meant good things, especially for Steve.

“Cap-“

“They said Tony’s been working on some kind of defence.”

“With _Loki_ ,” James reminded him, trying to emphasise how completely different their counterparts’ circumstances were. Steve shook his head.

“We can’t get them Loki,” he said firmly. “But if Tony can help- we can try, at least, right?”  

 

* * *

“Right,” Tony muttered, fighting to keep his voice upbeat. “Okay, this is fine.”

Hawkeye didn’t seem to want to play along at all.

“How is this fine? This is, like, exactly the opposite of fine.”

“They’ve still got the tracer-things. We’re going to find them, guys, all right?”

“Of course,” Natasha said simply. It was calm, and quiet, and more support than Tony had ever known to count on her for. “Tell us how we can help, all right?”

“Sure,” Tony nodded. “To start with, you can make sure there’s no video of this, okay? I will _lose it_ if this goes viral, I mean that.”     

He raised his eyes to the sky before he could think better of it.

“Hey,” he muttered, resisting several off-colour jokes which he _knew_ were a result of his own awkwardness. “Uh, Heimdall? I hope I’m pronouncing that right. Could we, I don’t know, get an appointment or whatever it is you do? With Thor preferably, or his mother, but-“

“Mortals,” Loki smiled from inches away. “I have heard your call and answered it; you may grovel at your discretion.”

He scowled, but not threateningly, when no one did.

“Ingrates.”

His eyes were alert, and faintly worried; he spoke almost scoldingly. “Have you lost the Captain and his lady _already_?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello to anyone still hoping to see the rest of this! thank you for waiting, sorry I abandoned it- I think I'm sufficiently over my comics trauma to get back into this one now :D hopefully it can be fun again.


	11. Chapter 11

“Stephen! What in god’s name is going on?”

Reed stretched out an elasticated hand to stop the older man from physically shaking the sorcerer.

“Do _not_ distract him from this.”

Doctor Strange’s magical aura bathed their frowns in milky light.

“But-”

“No. Listen to me.”

He spoke more harshly than he usually did, which seemed to answer- Stark faltered, plainly startled, and let his arm drop. Reed pressed on, hoping more than anything to disprove the disquieting hypothesis he was beginning to develop about his employer’s investment in their project. 

“You’re not wrong,” he admitted, lengthening his extended limb a foot or two further so he could turn Stark’s wheelchair towards the map behind them. The data shifted even as they watched, miniscule points of lights flickering out while others ignited elsewhere. “It is a matter of urgency, and we are well aware that time is of the essence.”

“But?”

This time, his employer’s tone was wry. In an earlier decade, it might even have been teasing.

“But,” Reed continued, thinking vaguely of Sue trying to reason with her brother. “It’s also a matter of extreme delicacy, both scientific and– let’s say spiritual, shall we?”

“I’m well aware of that,” Stark interrupted, scowling. Reed studied his face over the rims of his glasses.

“If you are, you should know better than to get in the way while he’s in contact with them.”

Stark slumped in his wheelchair, uncharacteristically quiet. He wasn’t just disappointed, Reed saw with some concern- his breathing was arrhythmic, and his face was pale.

“You need to get some rest.”

“We all need to get some rest,” his employer shot back. This time, at least, there was some sympathy in his pale eyes. “Stephen most of all, I think.”

Reed had almost given himself permission to breathe a sigh of relief when the sorcerer gasped, doubling over in pain.

* * *

“You’re okay,” Steph said again, wishing she had more to offer than hot towels and a script they’d been wearing out since 1926. Bucky closed his hand around her wrist as if to reassure her that he was still in the fight. “I love you. You just hang on, a thaisce.”

“A Mháire,” he breathed, fighting for every syllable. “Tá m’chroí is- isti-”

“Shh, shh.”

 Irish was harder than English, Steph had known for years, when you couldn’t get your throat to work right. “I know, a chéadsearc.”

She sighed softly, rubbing his back through another painful spasm. “Poor Bucky. You’re doing so well.”

He kissed her neck, but didn’t try to speak again. Steph was still holding him close when Steve’s friend came back in. He resumed the chair he’d been occupying earlier. He offered them a tight smile, not without warmth but uncomfortable in a way Steph’s husband never looked.

“You two holding up? Cap’s working on getting hold of Stark.”

“Thanks.”

She smiled back briefly, trying not to think too hard about his wrong-coloured eyes, let alone the metal arm she really didn’t have time to think about just then. “How’d you get stuck with door duty?”

The soldier shrugged, nonchalant unless you knew what to look for.  

“Big man likes the wizard better.”

Stephanie scowled.

“So far your one sounds like a jackass.”

The Bucky who wasn’t hers gave a coughing snicker that sounded like he didn’t quite remember how to use it. Feeling protective of both of them, and missing the Tony Stark she knew would never choose some jumped-up magician over Bucky, Steph rested her palm against her husband’s cheek for a second. “Maybe I don’t want that jerk getting too close to you, huh.”

She raised an eyebrow at the other one, who was struggling with that rusty-sounding laugh of his again.

“What, Barnes?”

At first, he just looked taken aback. “Nothing.”

He smiled slowly, finding his voice after whatever she’d done to put him off. “It’s just- you’re so much like Steve, right, mostly- and then suddenly you’re really not at all. If you know what I mean.”

That was pretty much how Steph had understood the multiverse as functioning, to the extent that she’d understood any of that stuff at all, so she nodded agreeably instead of trying to articulate how completely Steve’s friend was not, at all, like her Bucky in any way she could name. Before she could say anything, her husband tensed again.

“Steph-”

The note of fear in his voice hurt like a blow.

“Bucky, what’s wrong?”

“I- I can’t-“

His counterpart jumped to his feet as Bucky’s eyes rolled back.

“Cap! You guys need to get back in here.”

The doctor swept in first, Steve close on his heels and frowning at them over the doctor’s high collar.

“What is this- some kind of seizure?”

“In more ways than one.”

A gloved hand brushed Steph’s shoulder.

“You should let go of him.”

Steph was on the point of telling Stephen Strange just where he could shove that ‘should’ when the other Bucky caught her eye, grave and sympathetic.

“Last time they tried to hang onto me during something like this my arm was sore for days _and_ I smacked Steve here right in the face.”

“Nearly dislocated my jaw,” his friend agreed cheerfully. Bucky wouldn’t like _that_ \- Steph could just see him, two-thirds dead and more upset about accidentally hurting her than about the people trying to break into his brain.

“Fine.”

She let them help her lay him out on the sofa, the way they claimed was safest, but kept one hand at his neck and the other on his arm. “Tá mé anseo, a Shéamais.”

He was trying to look at her, she was almost sure. Steph kissed his forehead.

“A chéadsearc, tá mé anseo leat.”

Looming over them, Stephen Strange closed his eyes and stretched out his hands like some kind of preacher.

“I must break their hold on him.”

Steve raised a cautioning hand, endearingly concerned.

“That sounds dangerous.”

“No more than this.”

That was fair, Steph thought. Doctor Strange smiled, recognizing the approval in her eyes. His voice was soft, apologetic. “I’m afraid this could be quite traumatic.”

It had all been pretty damn traumatic already - the crux of it was keeping Bucky safe, and in one place, long enough to help him through the rest of it.

“I’ve got him. You tell those bastards they can go to hell.”

The sorcerer nodded; Steve grinned broadly. Their not-quite-Bucky hardly moved, but he looked more at ease than he had in a while. Tuning them all out, Steph bent her head and stayed with her boy, murmuring the kind of encouraging nonsense that couldn’t possibly mean anything to anyone but him. It was over in minutes- Bucky gave a single, awful gasp- and then his eyes were wide and fixed on hers, and he was smiling as he reached for her.

“C’mere, gorgeous girl.”

For once he kissed her properly right away. “I’m okay, a Mháire.”

Steph laughed right in his face, swiping at her eyes with one hand as the other cupped his jaw.

“You’re a goddamn liar, Bucky Barnes.”

“No, really. It just…stopped. When he did- whatever that was.”

He offered the others a tired smile, not quite a grin. “Thanks for that.”

“Of course.”

Steph arranged herself next to him on the couch, feeling immeasurably better with his arm around her. Bucky still looked worried, though.

“You’re _sure_ they won’t try this on with her.”

It seemed hugely unlikely, Strange assured them- unless he was much mistaken they wouldn’t take that risk with the person they were actually trying to bring through. Stephanie glowered, more resentful than she had words for, but Bucky relaxed enough to drop his head to rest against her shoulder.

“‘s good. Thanks.”

His eyelids were heavy already. Steph pressed a kiss, quick and grateful, to his cheek.

“Can I put this one to bed, or is that going to start all this up again?”

Stephen Strange smiled. He was older than their one too, and maybe because of that a lot less pushy about everything.

“I will be here. Anything we may have to do afterwards will be easier if Captain Barnes can get some rest before that.” 

Steph swallowed a chuckle at the shock on the other men’s faces- apparently they hadn’t _quite_ thought through that part of the differences between them. Her boy raised his head, curious; Steph pressed her forehead to his so she could smile for his eyes only.

“You hear that? _Some_ times you’re allowed to sleep without anyone having to knock you out first.”

“Hooray,” Bucky muttered, totally deadpan- then he grinned, just for her. “With you, though, right?”

“As opposed to what, Mister?”

Steve Rogers cleared his throat, brow creased with worry.

“Is that safe? How do we know they won’t try again?”

“Oh, they’ll try again.”

This Doctor Strange looked much calmer about the whole thing than their version had. “We’ll be better prepared next time.”

“So we will.”

The Bucky who wasn’t clapped Steve’s shoulder with that metal hand of his. “Can we take this elsewhere in the meantime?”

The gruffness of his voice was utterly unfamiliar, but the mischief in his eyes came the closest of anything Steph had seen so far to reminding her, just fleetingly, of her husband. “The little ones should be in bed, Steve.”

Bucky broke first, leaning in to crush Steph close as he laughed. She smoothed a hand down his back, giggling into his shoulder as the other Captain America glared at his friend.

“You’re not going to let that go any time soon, are you?”

“Never,” the soldier vowed, quite expressionless, but smiled when even the Sorcerer Supreme spared a chuckle for Steve’s muted grumbling. Bucky nuzzled closer with a quiet, relieved kind of sigh.

‘I’ve got you,” Steph promised, one more time just for luck, and kissed him firmly in case he was looking for proof.

* * *

 

Stephen Strange opened his eyes. He was breathing hard, but otherwise felt none the worse for that more than unexpected interlude.

“Well,” he muttered, exchanging a bewildered look with Dr. Richards. Of course even that was too long for Stark to wait.

“Well? What’s going on? What was that?”

“That,” Stephen murmured, feeling the words out as he went. “Was another version of myself, letting me know in no uncertain terms that it must be both of them, or neither.”

Richards’s eyes were alight with eager curiosity. They would be up half the night, Stephen saw at once, discussing the ins and outs of how such an exchange could work, and whether it had any useful application.

“Did he say why?”

“Not as such.”

It hadn’t been a verbal exchange, but perhaps that was best covered later- their employer looked much worse for wear than Stephen had left him, and after all it had been late well before they had decided to make another go of it. “There’s nothing for it, I’m afraid.”

Stark scowled.

“Can’t we work around them?”

“I could,” Stephen told him plainly, stressing that it would have to be his decision. “But it would almost certainly kill one of them, if not both, and I did _not_ agree to join you in this venture to help you end innocent lives.”

The former Iron Man looked stunned.

“Stephen. You know I’d never ask you to-”

He looked away. Richards raised his shoulders in a helpless, loose-limbed shrug. When Stark spoke again, it was to both of them.

“Go home, all right? Clearly this is going to take some time.”

They left him still staring- all-seeing, unseeing, or somehow both at once- at the flickering map of Civil Wars fought, won, and still to come.


	12. Chapter 12

Stephen Strange breathed out slowly, but through his nose so it could not have been called a sigh. His long-time friend was slumped in his wheelchair, still exactly where Stephen and Richards had left him hours earlier.

“If you’ve been having second thoughts-“

Stark gave a low, mirthless chuckle.

“Four hundred and thirty-second thoughts, maybe.”

That sounded like a reasonable estimate to Stephen.

“And yet we press on.”

It wasn’t a challenge, precisely, but Stark seemed to hear the question Stephen had not asked.

“I think we have to. Look at them, Stephen.”

The fiery glow in front of him made the point clearly enough. “If we can save _one_ world from this-”

“And if we can’t?”

His employer turned at that, his tired eyes as sharp as they had ever been.

“We can. You need more time, I understand that, and Reed’s half-convinced he’ll have to build the damn thing from the ground up, but we’ve already proven we can do it.”

They had proven their plan was effective in practical terms, Stephen argued gently; they had no clear evidence, nor any real reason to expect it, that even a complete success would guarantee the outcome that had been Stark’s all-consuming obsession for years already.

“It’ll work.”

The conviction in his voice was almost religious. “She won’t let us down, I know it.”

It was a lot of pressure to put on a girl they had not met except in theory. Stephen wondered, not for the first time, what Stark planned to do if Stephanie proved less than willing to go along with his demands.

“You must not hurt the other,” he reminded his employer gravely- and not only on moral grounds. Whoever Stephanie’s companion proved to be, the bond between them had to be of the most profoundly intimate kind for either of them to risk all they had been through so far. Stark’s eyes fairly gleamed.

“You don’t think-”

“It’s a possibility,” Stephen offered in his most neutral voice. “One of many, which is the-”

“The way of the multiverse, yes, I know.”

Strong arms gripped the wheels of the red and gold chair Stark refused to rebuild in a more modern form. “Thank you, Stephen.”

His eyes softened; his voice gentled with it.

“I don’t say that enough, do I? Thank you, I mean that. Not only for this.”

He had never doubted that, so Stephen inclined his head by way of accepting both thanks and implied apology.

“I will be recovered by the time Dr. Richards has made his adjustments,” he announced. How long that would be none of them knew for sure, but Stephen had very nearly recovered his strength already, if not his confidence, and Stark tended to be less demanding of either of them when he felt at least moderately sure of at least one.

 “That’s fine,” he nodded. “They’ll be all right for a while, at least.”

He wasn’t looking at the world where they had stranded their victim and her friend, but at the one Stephanie had been forced to leave behind.

* * *

“Steph,” Bucky breathed, mostly for his own benefit. He had woken naturally a few minutes earlier, and instead of disturbing her rest was smoothing his fingers through her hair and watching her face as she slept. They’d spent so many nights like that recently, thanks mostly to his own paranoia, that Bucky knew just from the way Steph’s jaw clenched that the nightmares he couldn’t always keep at bay had caught up with them.

"Hey. Wake up, a chroí."

He touched her cheek; her eyes shot open as if he’d pinched her hard.

“Bucky.”

She sat up quickly, drawing him close so she could kiss his neck. “I’m okay. It wasn’t- I was dreaming.”

“Tá mé anseo,” Bucky promised anyway. “We’re okay.”

“I know.”

She had crossed her hands at the back of his neck, fingertips grazing the necklace Loki had put there himself. It reminded Bucky suddenly of a question he’d been way too tired to phrase properly before they’d fallen asleep.

“How come you decided not to do it?”

Stephanie froze. There was something like guilt in her eyes, mingled with a kind of surprised admiration- apparently she’d assumed Bucky had been too out of it to know what the rest of them had been up to. 

“I’m not complaining,” Bucky clarified, just in case. “I- saw you thinking about it, I guess.”

His wife breathed in deeply, sighed gustily, and then nodded like the kid Rogers accepting official orders on behalf of their team.

“This guy’s not the one I was dreaming about. That one’s got your same eyes, only his arm is metal like Steve’s one, and I think- I think-”

She stopped to touch her lips to his, almost in apology. “I’m pretty sure his Steph is dead.”

Bucky felt his eyes squeeze shut. It was stupid, maybe- his wife was perfectly fine, and right there holding onto him while she worried about some other version of him she had only kind of met, maybe- but he couldn’t do anything about the way he shuddered at the thought of it. Stephanie hugged him tighter, fingers slipping into his hair.

“I thought it might be the future at first, remember? But I guess he’s another other-you, probably.”

It made more sense than that she was suddenly clairvoyant, but Bucky felt his eyes go wide as several months’ anxiety suddenly made a damned sight more sense.

“ _That’s_ why you’ve been so worked up about the serum failing.”

She nodded, slightly sheepish.

“It makes sense, right? Cos it’s your arm and my, I dunno. Everything.”

“Steph,” Bucky protested. She shook her head, still all out of sorts.

“You didn’t see. You- he, I mean. He was-“

She turned her head and kissed him like it had been hurting her not to. “You’re not allowed to hurt like that, okay? You’re just not.”

“It’s not the serum, a ghrá.”

Bucky risked a grin with their lips practically touching. “Turns out it’s actually a crazy sorcerer trying to borrow you for god-knows-what. Not that we’re gonna let him, are we?”

“Yeah.”

Stephanie smiled, still holding onto him with both hands. “So that’s why I decided to trust your stupid Loki and his dumb necklaces instead’a leaving you here on your own.”

She relaxed against him, letting Bucky take her weight.

“Besides which you can’t stay _here_ , Bucky- these guys are hopeless except for their sorcerer. Especially their stupid Tony, sounds like.”

It was such a Steph thing to say. Bucky kissed her hair, and then her cheek.

“I’m sure our one is fine, a chroí.”

She didn’t ask how he knew that was where she’d gone as well.

“You think he’s got hold of Loki yet?”

It seemed likely, Bucky thought.

“They’ll be fine, Steph.”

He urged her gently back against the pillows. “Come lay down.”

She went willingly, settling into his arms as her right hand wrapped around his left.

“You _sure_ you’re feeling okay?”

“Yep.”

She kissed his shoulder like she thought she had to make sure it was still there, then closed her eyes, deep in thought.  

“Can I ask what happened, you think?”

Bucky smirked, but not too mockingly.

“I’ll ask him for you if you promise not to take it out on Steve after.”

Stephanie opened her eyes to scowl at him, instinctively resentful.

“I would _not_ let some jerk-“

Bucky kissed her quickly, trying to show her instead of telling his wife again how completely sure of her he’d always been.

“Of course _you_ wouldn’t, the last thing you’ve ever been is hopeless.”

He kissed her again, maybe a little possessively. “I love you, Stephie girl.”

Stephanie raised an eyebrow, but no objections. She was still stroking his fingers with her own, the way she’d done back in the day when she still felt like it was her job to make sure they were all present and accounted for. You can’t have her, Bucky thought as clearly as he knew how, just in case any sorcerers were lurking on the edge of their consciousness or whatever Richards would have said. She’s _my_ Steph, and you’re _not_ gonna hurt her on my watch.

* * *

 

“We’re really okay with this.”

Clint glanced uncertainly from one teammate to another before throwing an appealing look in Natasha’s direction. “C’mon, I know _you_ think it’s crazy.”

“I do,” she agreed crisply. “But also effective, considering it’s worked before.”

Loki’s grin stretched Cap’s face.

“Thank you, Natasha.”

Clint shut his eyes tight.

“Don’t look at me,” he ordered. “And don’t talk to her.”

He turned to glare at Iron Man.

“For the record I blame you.”

Tony looked faintly offended.

“You could blame Loki,” he pointed out, patting Clint’s shoulder with one gauntleted hand.  “Would _you_ like to be the one to tell SHIELD what we’re up to?”

Clint wasn’t sure there was any level of authority high enough to grant clearance for what Richards was building, let alone for casually letting Loki join their team _in persona_ Captain Barnes.

“I don’t like it,” he muttered. “Back off, Wilson- your wing’s going through Steph’s head.”

Loki couldn’t occupy two forms at the same time, he had explained, so Stephanie was just a projection close by his side. Sam jumped to his left, muttering apologetically as Loki tried to assure him that no harm had been done.

“I don’t like this at all, okay, I just want you all to-”

“Stark.”

Loki’s voice was sharp, and uncomfortably serious coming from him. Clint looked up in spite of himself and felt his hand clench around his bow as he saw the red dot that had caught the trickster’s attention. “Explain.”

“Dematerialise,” Bruce ordered in a low voice. His watch was starting to beep frantically. “Now.”

He did- apparently slipping into Steph’s form, because even though Clint was close enough to see the bullets flatten against the sidewalk he wasn’t sure he’d ever shake the image of Stephanie falling to her knees at her husband’s side.

“Single shooter,” Sam was muttering, stepping away to spread his wings. “Go ahead, Stark- we’ve got your back. C’mon, big guy.”

The Hulk bounded after him, growling about idiots who kept tryin’a get their Cap.

“Move,” Tasha snapped suddenly, shoving Clint hard enough to make him stumble to his knees. “Go, quickly.”

Loki nodded Steph’s head, but when he left them the projections were still in place.

“You’re keeping him alive,” she reported firmly, making a show of talking into her phone. “I’m calling for medical assistance and looking out for anyone else who might have eyes on us.”

“Right,” Clint muttered, making an effort to look like he was administering CPR without actually pushing his hands through the projection’s chest. “Sure, of course that’s what we’re doing.”

“Stop,” they heard Sam cry over their shared channel. “Wait, you can’t just-”

Natasha sucked a breath in at the crunch that followed.

“Well,” she said quietly. “Apparently _this_ time we’ve avenged Captain Barnes by breaking a sniper’s neck.”

“Not any old sniper,” Tony muttered, his voice muted by pure shock. “No, we just killed Brock Rumlow, okay, and I’m pretty damn sure the last thing he said before that was ‘Hail HYDRA.’”

Natasha squeezed Clint’s shoulder when he met her startled eyes.

“There, now even you can be glad that was Loki instead of James.”

“So glad,” Clint muttered, mechanically completing fake compressions on the fake victim of an attack Loki had just vindicated with a real, and apparently really casual, murder. “The gladdest I've ever been. My next question is  _what the hell is going on, Tasha_?"

**Author's Note:**

> title is a song from 1939; the version I know is performed by Mildred Bailey.  
> 


End file.
